How to Use an Inversion Table, and for How Long

How an Inversion Table Works

Before the steps make sense, it helps to know what the table is doing. It has no motor. It is a bed on a pivot, and your body is the weight that tips it.

A Pivot and Your Center of Gravity

Teeter calls its approach “Precision Balancing” and explains the principle simply: the table works by distributing “weight evenly on each side of the pivot point” (Teeter, 2020). Innova’s manual says the same thing in its own words: “you will need to find your personal center of gravity,” using three adjustments, the height tube, the headrest pad and the footrest plate (Innova).

When your weight is balanced on the pivot, the table barely moves on its own. That is the goal, because it means you, not gravity, decide how far and how fast you tip.

Your Arms Steer the Angle

With the table balanced, small movements do the work. Innova’s instruction is to “slowly raise one arm and move it up and over your head,” at which point the table “should begin to tilt back slowly,” then to raise the other arm the same way (Innova). Bringing your arms back to your sides reverses it. Teeter describes the same control: with the right settings you manage “your speed and angle of inversion with just simple movements of your arms” (Teeter, 2020).

What Gravity Does to Your Spine

Once you are tipped back, your own body weight pulls along the spine. A 2023 paper in Disability and Rehabilitation describes inversion table therapy as “a form of spinal traction,” thought to help low back pain because gravity-assisted traction separates the lumbar vertebrae (Kassay, 2023). That is the proposed mechanism, not proof of relief. What the trials found is on our page about inversion table benefits.

How to Set Up an Inversion Table for Your Height

This is the step that decides whether the table feels controllable or alarming. Take your time over it the first day and write your settings down.

Set the Height on the Main Shaft

Every table has a sliding shaft, marked in heights, that carries the ankle unit. Innova’s instruction is to pull the height adjustment knob, slide the tube to your height number and make sure the knob “locks securely into a hole” (Innova). Teeter adds a useful starting point: the markings “are just a guide to get started,” your real setting “may vary by several inches depending on your weight distribution,” and Teeter recommends starting 1 inch taller than your actual height, then testing your balance (Teeter, 2020).

Test Your Balance, Then Adjust One Hole at a Time

Here is where the two makers’ instructions differ in direction, because the mechanisms differ. On a Teeter, if rotation is “too aggressive” and returning upright is hard, you lengthen the main shaft; if it isn’t aggressive enough, you shorten it (Teeter, 2020). On the Innova ITX9600, if the table won’t invert you move the height tube up one position, and if it inverts too quickly you move it down one position (Innova).

Set the Angle Limit Before You Get On

The angle limit is chosen while you are standing, never while you are upside down. On Teeter tables a tether strap does this, and Teeter calls limiting the angle “important when you are just getting started” (Teeter, 2020). The FitSpine X3 and LX9 mark three presets on the strap:

These are product settings, not a recommended progression. Follow the current manual and any restrictions given by your clinician.

Innova uses a pin instead. The ITX9600 manual labels five settings, 15, 30, 45, 60 and 85, and says beginners should use the setting marked 15 (Innova). Innova’s FAQ says new users should begin at “15 or 30” (Innova).

How two common tables set the angle and hold the ankles, from the manufacturers' specs

Spec	Teeter FitSpine X3$$$Premium, price tier 3 of 3Maker source	Innova ITX9600$Budget, price tier 1 of 3Maker source
Angle control	EZ-Angle tether marked at 20°, 40° and 60°; full inversion with secure lockout	Pin with protective cover; the manual labels the settings 15°, 30°, 45°, 60° and 85° (the product page calls it a six-position pin)
Ankle system	Deluxe EZ-Reach ankle lock, extra-long handle, micro-adjusting closure	Reversible ankle holders (foam rollers and U-shaped holders can trade places)
Buy	See today's price: Teeter FitSpine X3 on Amazon (opens in a new tab)	Not linked

Teeter FitSpine X3Maker source

Angle control

EZ-Angle tether marked at 20°, 40° and 60°; full inversion with secure lockout

Ankle system

Deluxe EZ-Reach ankle lock, extra-long handle, micro-adjusting closure

See today's price: Teeter FitSpine X3 on Amazon (opens in a new tab)

Innova ITX9600Maker source

Angle control

Pin with protective cover; the manual labels the settings 15°, 30°, 45°, 60° and 85° (the product page calls it a six-position pin)

Ankle system

Reversible ankle holders (foam rollers and U-shaped holders can trade places)

Show full specs

Maker source from the maker's own page or manual, not independently testedListing only retail listing, no maker spec sheetNot stated the maker publishes nothing

Lock Your Ankles

Getting on is its own small routine. Teeter’s order: “carefully step over the Main Shaft,” rest your lower body on the bed without leaning back, then “step onto the foot platform one foot at a time” and close the ankle system snugly (Teeter, 2020). Teeter tells users to confirm the closure with its “Hear, See, Feel, Test” method every time, and says every user in a household should learn their own settings.

Innova’s manual describes its own system: slide your feet between the U-shaped holders and the foam rollers, make sure the backs of your ankles touch the rollers, and pull the ankle knob until it locks, with no gap (Innova). Whatever the brand, the rule is the same: nothing happens until the lock is confirmed.

How Long to Stay on an Inversion Table

This is the question most people search for, and the honest answer has three parts: what the makers say, what the fall researchers say, and what the studies measured.

What the Makers Say: 1 to 2 Minutes to Start

Teeter’s FAQ: “You should begin with 1-2 minutes per session and advance only as you feel comfortable” (Teeter, 2014). Innova’s FAQ lands on the same figure: “Most people start with 1-2 minutes per session” (Innova). Two competing manufacturers, one starting number.

Working Up to 3 to 5 Minutes, With No Fixed Maximum

Over time, Teeter says, “work up to 3-5 minutes or as long as it takes for your muscles to relax and release.” It also says that “there is no predetermined time limit for using your inversion table” (Teeter, 2014). Innova says you may “slowly add more minutes to each session” as your body adjusts (Innova). Neither gives a ceiling.

The Case for Under One Minute

The authors of a 2021 report on three cervical spinal cord injuries from inversion table falls take the opposite view. Citing a muscle fatigue study, they note that the ankle muscles lose about a third of their maximum force after one minute of sustained effort, and recommend “to reduce usage time less than 1 min” (Jung, 2021). Their reasoning is mechanical: the fall starts when the ankles give out, so less time upside down means less time for that to happen. It rests on three cases, so it can’t tell you how common falls are.

What Time Upside Down Does to Your Body

The studies that timed people measured side effects, not the right session length. After two minutes of inversion, blood pressure rose significantly in 60 healthy young women (Haskvitz, 1986). At three minutes on an inversion table, researchers recorded significant changes in blood flow to the brain and in a marker of pressure inside the skull (Kondrashova, 2019). After five minutes fully inverted, eye pressure roughly doubled in healthy eyes (Weinreb, 1984).

How Long Should You Hang Upside Down, Then?

Put together: both makers publish one to two minutes as the starting point, and the fall researchers advise under one minute. We do not prescribe a duration. Your table’s manual and your clinician set it, and the measured effects above are the reason to ask. What these effects mean for particular conditions is on our page about inversion table side effects.

Angle Settings and What the Makers Say

Angle is the other dial. Someone hanging at 90 degrees for one minute is doing something very different from someone at 20 degrees for five.

1. 20°Published tether mark

2. 40°Published tether mark

3. 60°Published tether mark

4. 90°Full inversion, optional

What Teeter and Innova Publish for New Users

Teeter’s instruction: “When starting out, limit your angle to somewhere between 20-45 degrees, then gradually increase that angle over time as you become more comfortable” (Teeter, 2020). On an Innova, the low settings are the 15 and 30 pins. Innova also reports that, “based on reviews and customer feedback, many users suggest” the 30 or 45 setting “provides sufficient results” (Innova). That comes from customer opinion, not a study. These are the makers’ statements about their own equipment, not a schedule we endorse, and a clinician who knows your condition may want a different limit.

Full Inversion Is Optional

Teeter advises against full inversion until you are completely comfortable at 60 degrees, the angle of the rear legs, and adds that “some people never want to fully invert, which is just fine” (Teeter, 2020). Full inversion is optional, and no study shows you need it. Whether and when it is appropriate for you is a question for your clinician.

A Shallow Angle Is Not Risk-Free

A partial angle is easier to control, but head-down positions still have measurable effects. In a 2015 study, two minutes in the yoga pose Downward Dog raised eye pressure from about 17 to 28 mmHg in people with glaucoma and from about 17 to 29 mmHg in people without it (Jasien, 2015). That was yoga, not a table, with 10 people per group, but it shows you don’t have to hang at 90 degrees for pressure to rise.

From Here to Exercises

Teeter also publishes exercises: stretches, then gentle movement, then strengthening, most of them described for full inversion. They are set out, with the maker’s conditions, on our page of inversion table exercises for beginners. Check with your clinician before adding any movement.