SAN FRANCISCO, Ca., June 19 — Your poor back's been through everything — stretching, ice packs, hot packs, some terrible-smelling liniments. And still you ache. They haven't invented the cure for what ails you; your only recourse is a handful of pain pills and a couple of days in bed, right? Wrong.
Mercantila Does Inversion Therapy!
How did an ancient Greek, an American Gigolo, and a professional water-skier team up to align your spine? In the Beginning. Inversion has been around since 400 B.C., when none other than the Father of Medicine (that's Dr. Hippocrates to you) used a ladder, rope, and pulleys to hang a patient upside down and let gravity work its decompressing magic on his back.
Fast-forward to the 1960s, when California osteopath Robert Martin's "Gravity Guidance System" re-introduced the healing benefits of gravity to the American public. Momentum picked up in the early 1980s with the help of a featured inversion sighting in the hit movie American Gigolo, but the resulting fad backfired. An emphasis on price wars meant cheap manufacturing, which meant compromised safety, which meant accidents, high-profile lawsuits… you get the idea.
Innovations
One of the only brands to resist the cheap-material trend was Teeter Hang Ups, founded by professional water-skier Roger Teeter and his wife, Jennifer, in 1981. The Teeters cornered the inversion market for a time with their emphasis on safety and quality, and inversion’s newest brand entries have cleverly followed suit. Now everyone from mass-marketing mogul Stamina to German manufacturing stalwart Kettler to high-end Swedish company Mastercare considers their products the perfect blend of safety, savings, and salutary benefits.
What’s In It For You?
Head-over-heels healing. Thanks to the proper emphasis on safe manufacturing, many inversion products can now offer — with confidence! — the optimal-therapy, full-inversion (re: upside-down) setting. As long as you’re within the table’s height and weight capacities, you don’t have to worry about falling and breaking your neck to treat your vertebrae (which only makes sense).
Horsepower. Above and beyond the rotation-speed setting controls widely available on all prices of manual tables, inversion technology has incorporated motors! They’re more expensive, sure, but they’re eminently controllable, smooth, and built for exhaustive use in the busiest health clubs.
Harder abs. Those full-inversion positions are more than optimal healers; they're good for grueling torso exercises. Don't believe us? Watch American Gigolo again.
Meet your match:
Want comfort? Want motorized rotation? Want value? (Want proper grammar?) Okay, okay. Read on to find our recommendations for all of the above. We'll even spare you the sales-y sentence fragments.
| Top saver: Stamina Inversion Stretch; $178.76 |  You can invert fully upside-down — thanks to sturdy steel construction — and control your pace with three rotation speeds. Or, for the same price, you can buy that fancy cable package and keep mashing your vertebrae with extended couch sessions. | | Topsy-turvy: Kettler Apollo; $349.00 |  The only inversion entry from the renowned German manufacturer just happens to be the most comfortable one at its price point. A padded backboard — rare for manual, residential tables — and protective foam at the feet and ankles will keep you snuggled in at any angle. | | | Save & Share |  Save 10% on Inversion!
10% off any Inversion Table order over $25. Enter Coupon code V3RS8J at checkout. Coupon valid through 6/30/2006 at | | | |
| Clearance |  Gravity Boots Bonus Pack.
Free ergonomic support straps with every pair of gravity boots, and Free Shipping make the Gravity Boots Bonus Pack a gravity-defying value — give back pain the boot for under $85! | |
| Top Brand | They’re the strongest, safest, and most established. It’s harder to stay on top than get there — especially with products designed to flip upside-down! — but they’ve spent over 20 years doing both, with manual and motorized products alike.
Teeter Hang Ups Store | |
| Penny For Your Thoughts? |  We sell a lot of stuff. Is there any particular line of products that's always mystified / fascinated you? (Go on, admit it. We're retail freaks. We're into this.)
Tell us why you're so curious -- give us a good enough story, and we'll give you the inside scoop. (Nobody wants pennies these days anyway.) Send your reply to readers@mercantila.com | | |
