I woke up this morning… Wait, umm… I woke up this late afternoon cursing the cruel and uncaring universe I exist in… I thought I’d done everything right, I got a career, I worked like a dog I saved my money… I’ve done this for the past 30 freakin’ years and… My reward was? An L-5 / S-1 disc blown out like a bad tire.

So I was laying there trying to figure it all out and it dawned on me… Gravity… It was all the the freakin’ gravity that screwed me up… I had to do something about it.

 

Body Power Inversion Table Review

 Originally I was going to bolt my sneakers to the top of the door frame or something  but  my back is too screwed up and to be honest my wife wouldn’t let me anyway, she did go to Big 5 and buy me me one of these though…  Body Power Gravity Inversion System it8020

 

 

Life dragging you down? Reverse course with the Body Power Inversion Table! Daily life can create stress, strain and be a downright drag on you. Aches, pains, and chronic stress often come about as a result of just living, putting weight on your feet, legs, and skeletal system. Inversion tables help relieve these issues by reducing pressure on spinal discs, ligaments and nerve roots, increasing blood circulation, strengthening your back and elongating your spine. Just a few minutes a day of relieving the pressure of gravity on your vital systems can produce a refreshed feeling of well-being that lasts all day! …

 

She brought it home and opened the box… Holy $HIT That’s a lot of parts!  Normally, I would have tossed the instructions over my shoulder and have gotten to work but considiring the shape I’m in the wife started actually reading the instructions and began putting it together…

 

 

Body Power it8020 Assembly 

I watched… Looked to me like it wasn’t too damn hard and when she was done, I asked her and she said: It’s totally freakin’ awesome… Like a giant erector set! ( I was going to say “yeah but you cheated by reading the instructions” but I decided not to rub it in)

 

 

The instructions are in English rather than Chinese translated into “Engrish” so that’s a plus… I’m considering writing an open letter to the Chinese:

Dear Chinese Peoples, Please… Just translate into Pig Latin and we will take it from there, because as it is we don’t have a clue as to what “Fixation is realized directly in plastic” Means and when you say stuff like “Will capture you child’s eye balls” it just scares the $hit out of parents and makes the rest of us laugh at you… But I digress.

 These instruction were written by an American…  Here is a sample:

 “Take the illustrated assembly which is composed of parts (#105), (#104), (#18), and (#09) out of the box. Pull up the Ankle Brace Lock Pin (#18) as illustrated and, at the same time, pull the Adjustable Ankle Brace (#104) out of the Height Adjustment Tube (#105) SLOWLY. (You will notice that there is a Spring (#09) that pulls downward as you pull the Adjustable Ankle Brace (#104) out). After you free the Adjustable Ankle Brace (#104) out as shown in drawing A, rotate it 90 degrees counter-clockwise so that the circular round holes face toward the Ankle Brace Lock Pin (#18), and the long oval slot faces downward toward the Hex Bolt (#50). Insert the Adjustable Ankle Brace (#104) back into the Height Adjustment Tube (#105) and release the Ankle Brace Lock Pin (#18)”

Yeah, I know… But at least it’s English.

 

 

 

One very important note…

This is not a Tool, this is an I.Q. Test

 

 

 

 30 years as a Mechanic, and I’ve seen some stupid $hit… This one leaves me with a question for the manufacture of this inversion table: Why the hell did you even put this thing in the box? And for you my dear reader if you decide to buy one of these anti gravity units just take this piece of $hit and throw it away if you do decide to go ahead and use it please drop me a line and let me know how bad you got hurt… And so I can laugh at you.

 

 The Anti Gravity Machine in Action

Okay, let me start by telling you that hanging upside down like a bat for protracted periods of time just isn’t comfortable to begin with, your eyes sort of bug out and it’s hard to breath… Well this inversion table doesn’t make that any better…

 

 

 

 

This thing isn’t very comfortable... It’s hell on the ankles and the back table is in a word flat… I suppose if you are a slinky chick like my wife (or this one in the illustration) it wouldn’t be so bad but it cuts into me pretty good.

It says it’s rated to 250 lbs but I’m not so sure… I weigh in at 207 and when I flipped upside down I could feel the frame flex and the pivots were creaking and popping in a rather alarming way… I suppose it isn’t going to have a catastrophic structural failure but I’m skeptical of it’s prolonged durability.

 

 How do I rate this product?

 Hmm… I really don’t know. If you need to get hung upside down really fast and your wife wont let you bolt your shoes to the ceiling I suppose this is the way to do it. This apparatus does fold flat so it can sort of be stored out of the way so you don’t have a jungle gym in the middle of your floor. The list price on this thing is $199.99 and I can tell you it ain’t worth that but it goes on sale all the time for $99.99 and I don’t feel bad at all about spending that much for it.

 As to how well an Inversion Table works for a bad back I suppose I’ll get back to you on that in a few weeks with an update, I can tell you that I stayed on it as long as I could without my brains squirting out of my ears and at least while I was hanging there it seemed the aching down my left leg did let up a bit… I really do hope this works for me because I’d really like to avoid surgery and if things do get better due to this I’m sure I will go pony up for one of the more expensive inversion tables and review that for you as well.