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Inversion Therapy Table - Make Gravity Your Best Friend

By Bruce Stevens

An Inversion therapy table provides the perfect way to use inversion therapy at home. Inversion tables are renowned for use in relieving back pain as well as other problems that gravity can sometimes contribute to, such as loss of height, circulation issues and even prolapsed organs.

Inversion can assist in maintaining overall health. Inverting yourself can help with reducing tension and stress by stretching and relaxing your muscles. It also helps with your ligaments providing them healthy movement. An inversion table, such as the popular Teeter Hang Ups EP-950 is one of the best ways to obtain all these important health benefits.

Possible Health Benefits of Inversion Therapy Tables

• Feeding and care for the intervertebral discs is provided by inversion therapy.
• Because of the benefits to the intervertebral discs, many times inversion assists with relieving back pain.
• It is believed that inversion therapy could increase the oxygen flow to the tissue in the brain.
• It helps to improve your circulation, accelerate lymph fluid and blood cleansing.
• Some people believe that inversion therapy can help reduce aging effects that have been caused by gravity.
• Increases blood flow in your internal organs.
• Inversion tables assist in the realignment of the spine and stretch the body.
• Helps to relieve the pain associated with varicose veins.
• Back pain can be caused by a multitude of things. Some of these issues are weak muscles in the stomach and back, muscle spasms and poor posture. The force of gravity can cause many of these issues.

How the Inversion Therapy Table Works

Inversion therapy helps you by using gravity to stretch you and relieve pressures within your body that cause physical problems. Inversion increases the amount of space in between each vertebrae relieving the pressure on the ligaments, nerve roots and discs. With less pressure, there is less pain in your back.

Each of the nerve roots exit the spine via an opening on each side of the vertebrae. The width of the opening is mainly determined by the intravertebral disc height. Plump discs that remain within their ‘wrappers’ consisting of ligaments are needed to keep pressure off the nerve roots and eliminate the possibility of pain.

Tension and stress can sometimes cause muscles to spasm in the neck, back and shoulders. The tense muscles cause spasms, which cause pain by a reduction in the amount of oxygen and reducing lymph and blood flow. This allows the waste chemicals to build up inside the muscles.

Even if you only invert 25° for several minutes, it can assist in relaxing your tense muscles and accelerate the flow of the lymphatic fluids that will flush out wastes that are in the body to the blood stream.

The quicker the waste is eliminated and new oxygen supplies are introduced the sooner this waste will clear from the body. As the new oxygen continues to be introduced, the pain and stiffness that is in the muscles can disappear.

Good posture can also be encouraged with the use of inversion table therapy. When the body is inverted, it remains in alignment with gravity. The spine is prone to return to its natural form, which is similar to the soft ’s’ curve. Using an inversion table on a regular basis can assist in maintaining proper posture and then continually keep balance in your body.

For centuries, inverting yourself has been recognized by yoga practitioners as a way to relax. Some therapy practitioners that work with inversion tables find that this kind of therapy helps improve a person’s mood. There is subjective evidence that inversion therapy is helpful in the treatment of depression.

Length of Inversion Time that is Recommended

This is one of the most common questions asked about using the inversion table. Generally, recommendations are that beginners start very slow inverting for only a couple minutes for the first couple of weeks. Once you feel comfortable, you can increase your length of time gradually. The inversion angle will also affect the amount of time you can remain comfortable. The more shallow angles are easier to contend with for the longer periods.

The majority of people invert themselves somewhere between five to fifteen minutes a couple times a day. There is not an actual time limit, just pay attention to how you feel. If, for any reason, you feel uncomfortable, just return yourself to the upright position. Literally all the issues related to discomfort that happen with people who have just begun using inversion is because they have tried to increase their degree of inversion too quickly. Only increase your duration time or degree on the inversion table when you feel comfortable to do so.

Inversion Benefits According to the Degrees of the Angle

20° to 30°: Your body will begin experiencing a mild amount of stretching to your joints and muscles. You will benefit from your circulation being stimulated with better oxygen flow and the internal organs will begin to reposition.

60°: At this angle, the average person will experience virtually every benefit of using inversion therapy. Once you have relaxed, your spine will receive the perfect amount of traction that is necessary to decompress your body completely. The majority of people do not usually need to go past this 60° angle.

90° (full inversion): Your body will hang freely and you will have the ability to perform stretching and inverted exercises. You do not have to graduate to full inversion if you do not want to. If you are interested in a full inversion, you should consider starting slowly by only spending a few minutes inverted until you feel more comfortable being fully inverted. The ‘preferred’ method of inversion table use is the Intermittent traction/Oscillation Intermittent traction. This method alternates between 20 to 30 seconds inverted and then returning upright. The best description of this method is a rhythmic rocking. This method is actually recommended by a lot of doctors to stimulate circulation and removal of waste from injured discs.

About the Author

Bruce Stevens operates http://hubzz.net where he reviews a wide variety of products. When not creating reviews he can be found at his blog http://rocketrider.net

Disclaimer:

The above guest post is published based on the premise that it will be helpful and informative. The opinions made within it are those of the author and not of sunnyray.org. The links you may find within this post do not necessarily imply our recommendation or endorsement of the views expressed within them.

Comments:

Pauline Hamed says:
12-15-2011

I am sure my daughter would benefit greatly from an inversion table. We live in Egypt are they available here?

sunny says:
12-15-2011

Hi Pauline,

This was a guest post by Bruce Stevens. I am sure he can answer your question in more detail, but as far as I can tell, the links in this article eventually end up at Amazon.com, which means that this particular inversion table ships to USA customers only. Probably Bruce, or some of the readers of my site will come forward with more information about purchasing this product in Egypt.

All the best,

Olga

dummy says:
05-29-2015

@Pauline, Don't just rush out to get one of these. Check with your doctor first. The reason is that being upside down puts a lot of stress on the skeletal and circulatory system. Go slow. Start with several minutes a day, and not more than 10 or 15 degrees. It will help you minimize the cons of the inversion therapy and get only the pros. Thanks.

derrick says:
08-07-2015

I want to know if this table is good for spinal decompression to treat lower back problems?

artist says:
11-29-2015

I've heard mixed opinions about inversion tables, but a good portion of people said it has helped. That prompted me to buy one myself. I can tell you that it helped a lot. I took it one step at the time, going slow and easy. After a while, I could hear clicks in the back and even I felt the disks pop back in. It was a great feeling. Now I do it for up to a half hour fully inverted and I feel the benefits, and my pain is almost entirely gone. Now I am aware that it wont be working for every one, but it worked for me. So here I'm sharing my experience with every one. Thanks.