There are a ton of exercises you can do to get ready to invert.

One of them is actually sitting on the floor and working on lifting up into an invert. You should also practice the leg grip from the floor too so that it becomes ingrained where each leg goes. I have lots of students who I have to tell to slow down because once they get up there their legs are in the wrong place…they never graduate beyond inverting from a squated position on the floor until the get the legs right,

You can also do things like fan kicks/ windwills that require you to engage your arms and your lower abs to complete the trick. As you get stronger your legs will be able to lift higher.

You can stand at your pole and lift your knees up to your chest too.

I am probably the odd girl out, but I teach basic laybacks before inverts and once you are strong enough to do a basic cross knee release, you are going to start seeing a big improvement in ab strength – so I tell my students to perfect their x knee up to pole sit, by the time they get it perfected, most are ready to begin inverted prep training. https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_pirat.gif