The HangUps F5000 Inversion Table is a fresh start to realizing the many advantages of inversion without the 1970s approach of wearing boots to hang from a doorway. The well-engineered table provides an easy, effective means for athletes and couch potatoes too to benefit in less than ten minutes. Surprising as it may sound, using the table makes you feel relaxed, less stressed, and longer. That's right, longer. As we go about our lives during the day we get shorter from the compacting of disks while just supporting our weight and exercising. We are at our tallest after arising from a good night's sleep. Think about the pounding that your body takes when you are on a long run. It is difficult to imagine a better way to recover from a workout than to invert.

The blood, lymph, and spinal fluids all benefit from inversion. The book that accompanies the F5000 describes the benefits as "an oxygen wash to the upper body." Your brain benefits from the extra oxygen it receives while inverted. Your lymphatic system lacks the pump that your heart provides to move blood throughout your body. The lymphatic fluids make a circuit of your body every 24 hours. By inverting, that time is reduced. Before you get off the inversion table, and for a while afterwards, you feel longer because your spinal fluids are no longer compressed.

The F5000 Inversion Table is designed to allow you to easily find a balance point, with half your weight on each side of the fulcrum. Once determined, a gentle arm motion is all that is required to invert more or less. It is recommended that, initially, you only invert 45 degrees. Benefits occur with as little as 10 degrees. The table has a strap which is used to control the degree of inversion. It is best to have someone spot you until you realize that you feel comfortable getting in and out of the ankle restraints. The ankle restraints are comfortable and simple to adjust or release. The table is designed to allow full inversion and permit advanced movements to obtain more profound benefits.

How do you know how long to invert? When you feel like you've had enough, stop. Ten minutes seems to relax the muscles and feels like "a total body stretch." If you are a typical runner, you aren't stretching enough and you don't know how to stretch your body completely.

The consensus of runners who tried it in our office made similar comments. Unanimously, everyone felt the benefits without needing to know much about what was happening physiologically. Most were skeptical when they first saw the table but became receptive after just one session. It is difficult to be critical of the F5000 when it makes you feel so good.

To find out more about HangUps and the table visit www.teeterhangups.com. Send us an e-mail if you try one and let us know how you feel. Editor.