How to Increase Hang Time: The Number Your Coverage Unit Actually Needs

Here is the trade you are actually making. For a given amount of energy, you can send the ball far or you can send it high. Distance and hang time compete for the same input, and the kicker who maximises one is necessarily giving up some of the other.

Most kickers resolve that trade in favour of distance without ever consciously deciding to, because distance is visible, comparable and satisfying. Hang time is invisible unless someone times it, so it loses by default.

This guide covers what hang time actually is, why coaches value it, the three mechanical levers that produce it, how to measure and train it, and how to find the right balance rather than simply maximising the number that feels best.

What Hang Time Is and Why It Matters

Hang time is simply how long the ball stays in the air from your foot to the returner’s hands. It is measured with a stopwatch and it is the input your coverage unit runs on.

The logic is straightforward. Your coverage players have to travel a fixed distance downfield. The ball travels through the air. Whoever arrives first determines what happens next — if your coverage is there when the ball is, the returner has nowhere to go; if the ball arrives first, they have space to build speed.

This is why a longer kick can produce worse field position. A kick that goes five yards further but arrives half a second sooner gives your coverage less time over more ground. That is the definition of out-kicking your coverage, and it is one of the most common self-inflicted problems in kicking.

Coaches think in net terms. On punts they judge net yardage, which subtracts the return. On kickoffs they judge where the opponent’s drive actually starts. Neither is gross distance.

Commonly cited benchmarks: around four seconds or more is frequently quoted as a good punt hang time, with kickoff figures varying more by level and by how deep the kick is. Treat those as orientation rather than targets — the number that matters is what your own coverage unit needs, which your coach can tell you.

Distance is a number about you. Hang time is a number about your team. Coaches select on the second one.

The Distance Trade-Off

Being explicit about this prevents a lot of confused practice.

Look at that last row carefully, because it is counter-intuitive and important. Swinging at maximum effort frequently produces a flatter kick, not a higher one — because straining tends to pull the body through and drop the contact point up the ball. Kickers chasing distance with effort often lose hang time and gain very little carry, which is the worst possible outcome of the trade.

The Three Mechanical Levers

Hang time comes from height, height comes from launch angle, and launch angle comes from three things you can actually change.

1. Contact point on the ball. The single biggest lever. Striking lower on the ball produces a higher launch angle. Most kickers wanting more hang time are striking too high — and the fix is a few centimetres of contact point, not more effort.

2. Plant foot depth. This is the underrated one. If your plant lands too far ahead of the ball, your body has already moved past it and your foot arrives descending onto the upper half — producing a low, driving kick regardless of intent. Moving the plant back a few inches raises trajectory more reliably than anything you do with your swing. Our plant foot guide covers the diagnosis.

3. Follow-through direction. A finish that drives forward and low produces a flatter ball; a finish that carries up and through supports a higher one. This should be a consequence of the first two rather than something you force — consciously lifting the swing usually produces a mishit.

What is not a lever: leaning back. Kickers instinctively try to add height by leaning away from the ball, which moves the plant effectively behind the ball and produces the ballooned, very short kick — high hang time, useless distance. That is not the trade you want.

Measuring It Properly

1. Use a stopwatch, not a phone estimate. Start on foot-to-ball contact, stop when the ball is caught or hits the ground.
2. Have someone else time it if you can. Timing your own kick means you are operating a stopwatch during your follow-through, which is not ideal for either.
3. Average across several kicks. Five minimum. Individual times vary more than you would expect, and a single reading tells you very little.
4. Record distance at the same time. The two numbers together are the useful data; either alone is not.
5. Record conditions. Wind changes hang time substantially, so a windy reading is not comparable to a calm one.
6. Test at the same point in a session. Fresh, after your normal warm-up. Hang time drops with fatigue.
7. Track it over weeks. It responds to training but slowly. Fortnightly readings show a trend; daily readings show noise.

Our guide to measuring kicking progress covers how to fit this into a wider testing protocol without turning every session into an assessment.

Training Hang Time

Specific, and most of it is about contact point rather than power.

Contact point ladder. Take ten kicks deliberately striking slightly lower on the ball than usual, then ten slightly higher. Time them. This teaches you directly what your own contact point does to trajectory, which is far more useful than being told.

Plant depth experiment. Move your plant cone two inches back, take ten kicks, time them. Then two inches forward, ten kicks, time them. You will typically find a clear pattern, and it is often the fastest hang-time gain available.

Target height drill. Pick a physical reference — a floodlight, a stand roof, a tree line — and kick to clear it. Height targets work better than abstract instruction because your body calibrates to a visible object.

Controlled-effort kicks. Take ten kicks at roughly 80 per cent effort focusing purely on clean contact and a full finish. Time them. Many kickers discover their best hang time comes at less than maximum effort, which is a genuinely useful thing to learn about yourself.

Film from the side. Trajectory questions are side-on questions. The behind angle shows direction faults; the side angle shows launch angle and contact point. Our video analysis guide covers the setup.

What does not work: swinging harder, leaning back, or consciously trying to lift the ball with your leg. All three produce worse contact, and worse contact costs both height and distance.

Hang Time for Punts

The same principle, different mechanics, and arguably even more important.

Punt hang time is the headline number. Punters are judged on net yardage, and net depends heavily on whether the gunners arrive with the ball. Around four seconds or more is commonly cited as a good benchmark.

The drop controls trajectory. Drop height and ball orientation at release largely determine where your foot meets the ball, which determines launch angle. A punter chasing hang time should look at their drop long before they look at their leg. Our punting mistakes guide covers this in depth.

The ankle lock matters more here. A soft ankle produces a dead, low punt with poor hang regardless of how well everything else went.

Full extension helps. A complete swing through the ball with a high finish supports a higher trajectory naturally.

Directional punting costs a little hang. Placing the ball toward a sideline typically trades a small amount of hang and distance for a much shorter field to defend. That is usually a good trade, and your coach should tell you when they want it.

Equipment

Finding the Right Balance

Maximum hang time is not the goal. The right hang time is.

Ask what your coverage unit needs. This is the actual answer, and only your coach has it. A fast coverage unit needs less time than a slow one.

Test your own trade-off curve. Take timed sets at different launch angles and record both numbers. You will find a profile that produces good hang without giving up unreasonable distance — that is your working kick.

Situations change the answer. A dangerous returner justifies more hang and less distance. A strong headwind justifies a flatter ball. Deep in your own territory the calculation shifts again.

Do not optimise for the stopwatch alone. A very high, very short kick has excellent hang time and hands the opponent good field position. The number is a means, not an end.

Report both figures. “I’m getting about four seconds at roughly this depth” is genuinely useful to a coordinator. Distance alone is half a sentence.

Common Mistakes

Frequently Asked Questions

What Actually Raises Hang Time, and What Only Feels Like It Does

Kickers try a lot of things to get more height. Most of them do not work, and several make it worse. Here is the honest comparison.

The top four rows are all about contact and position; the bottom four are all about effort and posture. That split is the entire lesson. Hang time is produced by where your foot meets the ball and where your body is when it happens — not by how hard you swing or how far back you lean.

The fourth row deserves particular attention because it consistently surprises kickers who test it. Taking ten timed kicks at around 80 per cent effort with a deliberate focus on clean contact very often produces better hang time than ten at maximum, and frequently gives up less distance than expected. If you run only one experiment from this guide, run that one — it takes fifteen minutes and it tends to change how people practise.

Keep Going

As an Amazon Associate we may earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. General training information, not medical advice. Benchmark figures vary by level and are cited as orientation only.