Standing Reach: How to Measure It, and How to Estimate It From Your Wingspan
Standing reach decides your dunk target, not height. How to measure it in 30 seconds, the height × 1.33 estimate, average reach by height, and how to adjust it using your wingspan.
Standing reach is how high you can touch flat-footed with one arm fully extended overhead. It is the single most important number in dunking, and almost nobody knows theirs.
Here is why it matters more than height: your required vertical is the dunk target minus your reach. Height only enters the equation through reach. So two players at 6'0" — one with a 93-inch reach, one with a 99-inch reach — need verticals six inches apart. Six inches is often the entire gap between "cannot dunk" and "dunks comfortably."
How to measure it (30 seconds)
- Stand flat-footed against a bare wall, in socks or bare feet. Not shoes.
- Reach up with one arm, not two. Standing reach is a single-arm measurement.
- Push the shoulder of that arm up as high as it will go — shrug into it. This is the step people skip.
- Mark the highest point your fingertips touch.
- Measure from the floor to the mark.
That is your standing reach. Most people who measure it for the first time find it is 2–3 inches higher than they assumed, because they had been measuring in shoes, or never fully extending the shoulder.
The estimate when you cannot measure
The standard approximation is:
Standing Reach ≈ Height × 1.33
| Height | Est. Standing Reach |
|---|---|
| 5'4" (163 cm) | 85.1" (216 cm) |
| 5'6" (168 cm) | 87.8" (223 cm) |
| 5'8" (173 cm) | 90.4" (230 cm) |
| 5'10" (178 cm) | 93.1" (236 cm) |
| 6'0" (183 cm) | 95.8" (243 cm) |
| 6'2" (188 cm) | 98.4" (250 cm) |
| 6'4" (193 cm) | 101.1" (257 cm) |
| 6'6" (198 cm) | 103.7" (263 cm) |
This is a population average. Real reaches scatter around it by several inches in both directions, so treat it as a starting point and replace it with a measurement as soon as you can.
Sharpening the estimate with wingspan
If you know your wingspan but have never measured your reach, you can do better than the flat ratio. Wingspan captures arm length, which is exactly what the height-only estimate misses.
Standing Reach ≈ (Height × 1.33) + (Wingspan − Height) × 0.5
The difference between wingspan and height is often called the ape index. A positive ape index means your arms are longer than your height, which raises your reach above the height-based estimate.
Worked examples for a 5'10" (70") player:
| Wingspan | Ape Index | Adjusted Reach | Required Vertical (10 ft, one hand) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 66" (5'6") | −4" | 91.1" | 34.9" |
| 70" (5'10") | 0" | 93.1" | 32.9" |
| 74" (6'2") | +4" | 95.1" | 30.9" |
| 78" (6'6") | +8" | 97.1" | 28.9" |
Eight inches of wingspan is worth four inches of reach — and therefore four inches off your dunk target. That is why long-armed players punch above their height, and why "can someone 5'10" dunk?" has no single answer.
Measuring wingspan
Stand with your back to a wall and both arms out to the sides at shoulder height, fully extended. Measure fingertip to fingertip. Get someone to help — self-measuring wingspan accurately is close to impossible.
Note that wingspan is a two-arm, fingertip-to-fingertip measurement, while standing reach is a one-arm overhead measurement. People sometimes confuse the two and end up with a reach figure that is wildly too high.
Put it to work
Enter a measured standing reach in the calculator and it uses it directly. Enter a wingspan instead and it applies the adjustment above. Enter neither and it falls back to height × 1.33 — and clearly labels the result as an estimate, so you always know which number you are looking at.
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