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| Grippers |
 Grippers – a device used for improving strength in the hands and forearms by training crushing grip. Usually, gripper is made with a heavy coil spring with two handles, often made of plastic or metal, connected to each end of the spring.
Two main types of grippers:
1. Sport grippers – the most common type of gripper. They can be usually found at sporting goods stores. Sport grippers typically provide a resistance of 11–18 kiloponds or 110–180 newtons. They can be closed by nearly anyone with an average crushing grip.
2. Strength training grippers – offer much more resistance than sports grippers, ranging from 27 kiloponds or 270 newtons of resistance up to 180 kiloponds or 1,800 newtons or more. It is difficult to find this type of grippers in stores, as they are a niche product, purchased mostly by grip enthusiasts. The majority people, even those who train with weights, have trouble closing these grippers. There are some tougher grippers made not for the intent of closing, but as a novelty item, that are up to 1000 lbs in resistance.
The user holds the gripper in one hand and attempts to "close" the gripper by bringing the two handles together until they touch. In general, the user will then release their grip and continue with more repetitions, or hold the gripper closed for some period of time.
The technical considerations in designing and manufacturing grippers include:
- Spring weakness, also known as winding tightness
- Spring height – the wire used to make the spring is a standard length in all grippers (it does vary some). Then how deep the spring has been set and how close the coil is to the handle also affects the force required to close the gripper.
- Handle spread – the distance between the inside edges of the handles. A smaller spread is easier to close, especially to users with smaller hands.
- Wire thickness - the diameter of the wire.
- Handle length. A gripper with longer handles will require less force to close.
- Handle thickness – thicker handles does not alter the amount of force required to shut the handles of the gripper, it does make it harder to grip, which increases the amount of muscular strength in the hands and forearms required to successfully close the gripper.
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