Video: Inversion therapy: Dan Brown's cure for writer's block put to the test A cup of coffee is my favoured method of loosening stiff writing fingers. But if it's good enough for Brown, whose "Inferno" was already number one in the bestseller charts before it has even been published, it's worth a go. The special table in question is a Teeter Hang Ups Inversion EP550, costing £410. I know this because on a label, proudly attached to the machine, is an message saying that Teeter is boasts the following happy customers: Lance Armstrong, the disgraced cyclist, David Blaine, the wacky magician, Eva Mendes, the model, and Dan Brown. I am not sure it is a roster of clients that screams: modest and well-adjusted, but it is on sale in a very reputable store that specialises in products aimed at alleviating back pain: The Back Shop. I am assured that this is no gimmick, but a bona fide way of unknotting your spinal cord - ideal for novelists who spend too long hunched over their masterpieces. Craig Brown (no relation), one of the managers at the shop, says: "I've enjoyed Dan Brown's books. I thought they were realistic. With that disconcerting thought, he straps me in to the "table," which in fact resembles a gurney such as the one used to transport the lunatic killer Hannibal Lecter in the film, "Silence of the Lambs." It looks like an instrument of torture, but it is very simple. I rest my back against the upright frame of the table and hook my ankles under a bar, which then clips shut. Brown tells me to relax and lean back against the supportive mesh. So far, so comfortable. He then tells me to lift my arms above my head. This action slowly tips the whole table into a horizontal position, so that I am poised like a finely balanced see-saw. This equilibrium lasts for just a few seconds before I tip into an upside down position. Nothing is holding me save for the ankle bar, but after the initial terrifying sensation of being on a vertiginous fairground ride, I start to relax a little. It certainly makes a change from my usual trudge to the kettle to make a coffee. And I have the comfort of being able to touch the floor with hands, which reassures me that if the whole contraption collapsed, I probably wouldn't break my neck. Photo: Julian Simmonds The best part is being able to right myself by merely moving my arms. The blood rushes back into my legs, which is a surprisingly pleasant sensation. It's not nearly as relaxing as a massage - and I have a mild headache - but I can see the attraction. Nicole Saunders, the official distributor for Teeter tables, says: "We've sold about £70,000 of them this year alone. That's an awful lot. It's really crept up in popularity. People are getting fed up spending £40 or £50 a time at the chiropractor or physiotherapist. They'd rather spend money on one of these tables. The table, however, is just part of the author's routine. Apparently he also likes to hang off a bar like a bat. Of course he does. You can do this by using gravity boots, a sort of ski-shoe with a hook, which at £40 a pair are a tenth of the price of the table. There was a period in Hollywood when hanging upside down was a sign that you had entered an elite - admittedly, a slightly metrosexual, monosyllabic elite, but one that signalled some sort of prowess. In Rocky IV, Sylvester Stallone - in contrast to his soulless, ice cool opponent - gets down and dirty on a Russian farm, bench pressing peasants, lifting horses out of the snow, heaving boulders. Part of his routine involves him hanging upside down in the tack room of a stable, performing sit-ups in mid-air. The key moment when gravity boots seized the imagination was when Richard Gere - with a chest as billiard-ball smooth as his one liners - strapped on a pair and hooked himself onto his doorframe to crunch his American Gigolo torso. Millions of women, and plenty of men too, swooned at the hormones dripping off the screen. It has to be said, I am struggling to replicate Gere's insouciance when I visited a gym to try out my pair of BodyMax boots. I have to be helped onto the bar, by Robert Bray, the gym owner and there is a terrifying moment when I, as agile as a gibbon with sciatica, slip my moorings. Bray makes an emergency dive to catch my collapsing body. Eventually, he hooks me on and lets me swing like a carcass at Smithfield market. It is a horrible experience. My fingers can't touch the floor, leaving me feeling as vulnerable as a punchbag and the blood rushing to my head is unpleasantly intense. It is as if my eyeballs are being injected with superglue, very slowly. I attempt about three pathetic sit-ups but after just a couple of minutes, I beg to be taken down. Bray says that very few of his customers use the boots - "they are not very fashionable now, but they are good for building up core body strength." Not all agree. Tim Hayes, a personal trainer to celebrities, says: "Look, if it were any good, you'd see it in every gym or fitness studio you walked into. And you don't. The result of my day spent hanging upside down is that I end up with a mild headache, no improvement to my lower back pain, but with rather relaxed legs. Did it make writing any easier? Not that I noticed. But, as the author Philip Pullman, said: "Writer's block is a condition that affects amateurs and people who aren't serious about writing." Of course, the fact Brown gets up at 4am to start writing might be the cause of any problems he has churning out his thrillers. Maybe a good night's sleep is the answer.