Can You Increase Your “Hang Time”?
We have all heard of “Hang Time”, but is it factual? In one word, “no” – scientific facts will back this up. Lots of people will not believe this, pointing to their favorite player and at the same time exclaim how he can hang in the air longer than somebody else. But, in actuality, any basketball player (including “Air Jordan” himself) only makes it seem as if they are floating in the air.
Read below for information on what in reality happens when any player jumps.
Coming down the court, a player jumps and the laws of physics take over. The laws assert that the first action causes an additional action that is equivalent in intensity but in the opposite direction. What this means in layman’s terms is that the player pushes against the floor and the floor exerts a force back. This action/reaction makes the player to leave the floor. If the player exerts a greater amount of force on the floor, the floor exerts a larger amount of force back. This causes the player to go higher in the air.
If a player is running in the course of the jumping process, his/her center of mass follows a parabolic route, which basically looks akin to a rounded off mountain peak. A persons “center of mass” is located close to their midsection. This means that, if the person were to stay in just the same position for the duration of the whole jumping action, his/her midsection (and consequently, entire body) would follow this path. However as a player jumps while running, the center of mass is lifted – and manipulated.
One thing that players regularly do is raise one (or both knees) while he is jumping.. He does that on his way up. On the way down, of course, he lowers his legs back down and that, in turn causes the center of mass to come back down. This in effect raises his head in relation to the center of mass. The head does not follow the parabolic path. The head stays at one height.
So what you get is for a part of the time in the air, the head stays at the identical height, but ,all through the entire time the center of mass goes up and down.
In essence, the player’s head is the key to why we believe in hang time.
While we look at each other, we don’t customarily look at the person’s “center of mass”. We usually concentrate on a person’s head (or at least the upper part of the whole body) . What happens at that instant is a bit of an “illusion”, but it really is happening. The person’s center of mass is varying and this causes his head to stay in the same position for a longer time.
If one person can’t hang in the air longer than another, what is the answer? It comes down to the reality that one person can JUMP HIGHER than the other! If you can’t increase your hang time then, you have to learn how to jump higher! How can you do this?
To get the most out of your vertical jumping exercises, you ought to think about a vertical jump training program. Check out these Vertical Jump Program Reviews to get more info.