I was emailed a question by a client the other day about inversion therapy and whether it was good for back pain relief.

Firstly, this is my opinion of this, which comes from many years of practice and helping those with back pain.

Inversion is nothing new, for centuries people have been hanging from doorways, leaning over the end of sofas, using the “rack” (although this was more for torture – but helped back pain also).

Inversion helps with back pain relief as it does take pressure off the joint and can even help to regain some height in the disc.

When you sit or stand, which most of us do all day apart from when you sleep, you compress your spine. This allows joints to tire and come under tension. Discs will leak a small amount of fluid and therefore as you age you shrink.

This is the effect of gravity on your spine.

Using inversion will help to balance the effects of gravity and the compression it causes. Will it help with back pain relief – yes.

Is it the only thing you should use – no.

Inversion will take pressure off your spine, it will NOT get joints moving better, or balance your muscular system. It will provide you with some temporary relief. This is a good thing if you are in pain.

Should you buy an inversion table?

Well these are not always cheap. You can achieve a lot of the results yourself by lying down more, which is a good exercise to do long term. Try to even out the time spent standing or sitting compared to lying down. So lie down watching TV or while you rest.

Inversion tables have become popular in back pain relief. They will help ease tension and if you can afford one then in my opinion you can’t really go wrong. But there is one BIG WARNING!

Do not rely on the inversion table to remove all the causes of your back pain. It is for temporary relief, if you do not remove the causes you will find you need your inversion table more and more as you age.

Like I said, they are good and will help reduce the tension created by gravity. But use these as part of an overall approach to back pain relief.

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