How to Kick a Football Higher: Get More Height and Hangtime

The core idea: height comes from contact point and launch angle, not effort. The two things kickers do to “get the ball up” — leaning back and scooping — actually reduce height by moving your contact to the wrong part of the ball. Real height comes from striking low and letting the ball’s shape do the work.

This matters most for two situations: getting a field goal over the line of tall rushers, and building kickoff hangtime so your coverage can get downfield. Both use the same underlying principle.

Why You Want Height

Height is not the goal by itself. What you actually want is the right trajectory for the situation, and often that means more height than you are getting.

• Field goals need enough height to clear the outstretched arms of the rush — a low line drive gets blocked. But too much height sacrifices distance, so the target is a fast ball that still clears the line.
• Kickoffs want maximum practical hangtime. Every extra tenth of a second lets your coverage travel further before the returner catches it.
• Punts live or die on hangtime, which is height applied to a dropped ball.

Nobody blocks a field goal that is high enough. Nobody returns a kickoff that hangs long enough. Height buys you both.

Where Height Actually Comes From

Three things create launch angle, and only one of them involves your swing.

1. Contact point on the ball. The biggest factor. Striking below the ball’s midpoint sends it up; striking at or above the middle drives it flat. Small changes here produce large changes in height.
2. Ball tilt. On a tee, the backward lean opens the underside so you can get beneath it. This is why kickoff tees are shaped the way they are.
3. Foot path. Your foot should travel up and through, not just forward. A rising foot at contact adds launch angle without you having to lean.

The Scoop Trap

The instinct when you want height is to get under the ball by leaning back and scooping upward. It is the single most common height-killing habit in kicking.

Here is why it backfires:

• Leaning back moves your contact point up the ball. You end up striking at or above the middle, which drives it flat — the opposite of what you wanted.
• Scooping decelerates your leg. Trying to lift, your body slows the swing to control it, so you lose power as well as height.
• It wrecks consistency. A leaning, scooping motion is far harder to repeat than a tall, driving one.

Height on Field Goals

Field goal height is a balance: enough to clear the rush, not so much that you lose distance.

• Plant level with the ball, not behind it. Planting too far back forces a lean, which flattens contact. Level plant keeps you tall.
• Strike just below centre. Not at the very bottom — that over-lifts and costs distance. Just below the middle gives you a clearing trajectory that still travels.
• Keep your chest up through contact. Staying tall is what lets your foot rise through the ball naturally.
• Full follow-through. Your leg should finish high, which both adds launch angle and confirms you did not decelerate.

Our field goal technique guide covers the full sequence, and the Accuracy Visualizer lets you see how contact point changes the resulting line.

Height on Kickoffs

Kickoffs want maximum practical hangtime, so you can push the height further than on a field goal.

1. Increase the tee tilt. The cheapest hangtime gain available. A more pronounced backward lean opens the underside of the ball. Use a dedicated kickoff tee — a flat placement tee cannot do this.
2. Strike lower on the ball. Kickoffs can take a lower contact point than field goals because you are chasing height over flat distance.
3. Stay tall and drive up through it. Same principle — no leaning, no scooping.
4. Measure it. Have someone time from contact to catch with a phone. You cannot improve hangtime you are not tracking.

6 Drills for Height

1. Stay-tall kicks. Twenty kicks with a single focus: keep your chest up through contact. Film from the side to check you are not leaning back.
2. Contact-point ladder. Deliberately strike five kicks low on the ball, five at centre, five high. Watch how dramatically the trajectory changes. Teaches you where height actually comes from.
3. Tilt experiment. Kickoffs at three tee tilts, measuring hangtime for each.
4. Over-the-bar drill. Set a high obstacle (a raised net edge, a bar) a few yards ahead and practise clearing it from close range. Trains a clearing trajectory for beating the rush.
5. Hangtime timer. Ten kicks timed foot-to-ground, trying to beat your own average.
6. Follow-through hold. Twenty kicks finishing high and holding the position. A high finish and good height go together.

Common Mistakes

Frequently Asked Questions

Height Versus Distance: Managing the Trade-Off

Every degree of launch angle you add is forward travel you give away. Understanding that trade-off is what separates useful height from wasted height.

The practical implication: do not chase maximum height as a general goal. Chase the right height for the kick in front of you, and train the ability to adjust between them.

Body Mechanics That Create Height

Beyond contact point and tee tilt, several body positions influence launch angle.

• Chest position. Staying tall keeps your contact point low on the ball. Leaning back raises it — the exact opposite of what the lean was meant to achieve.
• Plant foot depth. Planting level with the ball lets you get underneath. Planting ahead of it forces you to reach down and over, flattening the strike.
• Hip rotation. Full rotation through the ball lets your foot travel up as well as forward. Restricted hips produce a flat, pushing motion.
• Follow-through height. A high finish is both a cause and an effect — it encourages an upward foot path and confirms you did not decelerate.
• Ankle lock. A loose ankle absorbs energy and produces a soft kick regardless of your launch angle.

Flexibility and Its Effect on Height

An underrated limiter. Your hip range of motion directly determines how far back you can bring your kicking leg and how high your follow-through can finish.

• Tight hip flexors shorten your backswing, reducing the distance over which you accelerate.
• Tight hamstrings restrict the follow-through, which encourages deceleration before contact.
• Limited hip rotation forces a flatter, pushing foot path instead of an upward one.

Daily mobility work — two minutes on hip flexors, regular adductor range work — often unlocks height that no amount of technique tinkering would find. Our warm-up and maintenance guide covers the routine.

Measuring and Tracking Your Height

Height is harder to measure than distance, which is exactly why most kickers never work on it systematically.

1. Time hangtime with a phone stopwatch. Foot contact to catch or landing. The simplest usable proxy for height on kickoffs and punts.
2. Film from side-on. Video gives you a visual trajectory you can compare week to week far more reliably than memory.
3. Use a fixed reference. A crossbar, a fence line, a tree behind the target. Note where the ball crosses it.
4. Track height alongside distance. Always log both. Height gained at the cost of significant distance is not automatically progress.
5. Compare against yourself, not a number. The right hangtime depends on your level and your coverage team. Beat your own average.

The Progress Tracker lets you log both figures per session so the trade-off is visible rather than guessed at.

Height Problems, Diagnosed

Height in Different Conditions

Weather changes the trajectory you should be aiming for, not just the one you get.

• Headwind. The wind adds height for you and kills distance. Drive the ball lower and flatter than instinct suggests.
• Tailwind. Carries the ball further. Normal trajectory is usually right; resist the temptation to add more.
• Crosswind. Affects line more than height, but a higher ball spends longer in the wind and drifts further. Slightly lower can be the safer option on accuracy kicks.
• Cold. The ball is harder and travels less. Expect reduced height and distance, and warm up considerably longer.
• Wet. A wet ball slips off the foot more easily, which tends to produce inconsistent contact and unpredictable height.

Our Weather Impact Planner helps you think through these adjustments before you walk out.

Height on Punts: A Different Problem

Punting height deserves its own treatment because the mechanism is completely different — the ball is falling, not sitting.

• The drop controls everything. A punt’s height is determined largely by the angle of the ball as your foot arrives. Nose slightly down produces a driving punt; a flatter drop produces height.
• Contact height matters. Striking the ball lower in its fall, closer to the ground, tends to produce a lower trajectory. Meeting it higher produces more lift.
• The follow-through is exaggerated. Punters finish considerably higher than placekickers, often above head height, and that upward path is part of what creates hangtime.
• Consistency beats maximum. A punter who reliably produces solid hangtime is far more valuable than one who occasionally produces enormous hangtime and often shanks.

Our punting guide covers the drop in the detail it deserves, since it is the single largest variable in the punting motion.

A Four-Week Height Programme

If height is your specific weakness, run this rather than adding random height work to your existing sessions.

Change one variable per week. Kickers who adjust contact point, tee tilt and body position simultaneously end the month with more height and no idea which change produced it — which means they cannot repeat it when it slips.

When More Height Is the Wrong Goal

Worth stating plainly, because this guide could easily be read as “higher is always better.” It is not.

• On long field goals, excess height is the main reason kicks come up short. If you are missing long attempts short rather than wide, you likely need a flatter ball, not a higher one.
• Into a headwind, the wind supplies height whether you want it or not. Adding more produces a ballooning kick that stalls.
• When your accuracy is the actual problem, height work is a distraction. Kicks that go high and wide are still misses. Fix the line first.
• If your coverage team is fast, your coach may genuinely prefer distance over hangtime on kickoffs. Ask rather than assuming.

Putting It Together

Height is one of the clearest examples in kicking of instinct pointing the wrong way. Everything that feels like it should lift the ball — leaning back, scooping upward, swinging harder — moves your contact point higher on the ball and flattens the kick. Everything that actually produces height feels counter-intuitive: stay upright, strike lower, drive forward, finish high.

The practical sequence is short. First diagnose whether you genuinely have a height problem, by checking whether your misses are actually low rather than wide or short. Then check your contact point on film from side-on, because that is where most of the answer lives. Then check your body position for a lean. Then, if you are kicking off, run a tilt experiment on your tee, since that is the cheapest height gain available to anyone.

Work one variable at a time and measure with a stopwatch rather than by feel. Hangtime is a number, and numbers do not flatter you the way memory does.

Height is trainable, measurable and mostly counter-intuitive — which is exactly why so few kickers work on it deliberately, and why the ones who do gain an edge relatively quickly.

Keep Going

General technique information, not individual coaching. Stop and consult a professional if you experience pain while kicking.