PDA Grippers

PDA grippers were torsion-spring hand grippers sold by Piedmont Design Associates (PDA), a company operated by John Szymanski that produced a variety of specialized grip-strength equipment during the early 2000s.

PDA's grippers, commonly known as SOS (Strength of Steel) grippers, are notable not only as early alternatives to IronMind Captains of Crush and Warren Tetting's Beef Builder grippers, but also for PDA's efforts to measure and better understand the substantial variation found among heavy-duty hand grippers.

PDA ceased selling grippers around 2004, making original examples relatively uncommon today.

SOS Grippers

PDA sold SOS grippers in multiple strengths. Rather than relying primarily on numbered difficulty levels, PDA commonly identified grippers by the diameter of the spring wire. A designation such as .280 or .295 therefore referred to a nominal wire diameter in thousandths of an inch.

This approach gave experienced users some indication of where a gripper was intended to fall in the strength spectrum, although PDA's own testing demonstrated that wire diameter alone could not reliably predict the exact difficulty of an individual gripper.

Known examples include the SOS .280 and SOS .295. Contemporary users generally placed the .280 in the upper Captains of Crush #2 range, while the .295 was intended to occupy the large difficulty gap between the Captains of Crush #3 and #4.

The grippers used aluminum handles and a heavy torsion spring in the general style that became standard for high-strength hand grippers. Contemporary users noted their similarity to Warren Tetting-made grippers.

Gripper Testing and Rating

An important part of PDA's legacy was its attempt to quantify the difficulty of individual grippers.

At the time, substantial variation could exist between nominally identical grippers. Spring dimensions, handle spread, spring mounting depth, manufacturing tolerances and changes caused by use could all affect the difficulty of a close. Consequently, two grippers carrying the same model designation could feel noticeably different.

PDA developed equipment and procedures for mechanically testing grippers and offered testing services for grippers from other manufacturers as well as its own products. Individual grippers consequently appeared in the grip community with PDA-measured ratings expressed in IP (inch-pounds).

PDA's work generated considerable discussion within the early online grip community about what it meant to "rate" or "calibrate" a gripper and about the limitations of comparing grippers using manufacturer labels alone. Although later systems such as the RGC (Redneck Gripper Calibrator) became the more commonly used method of rating grippers within the grip community, PDA's earlier work was an important part of the development of the idea that individual grippers should be mechanically measured rather than assumed to have identical difficulty based on their model.

Seasoning

PDA also investigated seasoning, the change in resistance that can occur as a new torsion spring is repeatedly cycled.

This was a significant subject in early gripper discussion because athletes could experience a gripper becoming easier during its initial period of use. PDA mechanically cycled and tested grippers in an effort to measure this effect.

Period GripBoard discussion concerning PDA's testing reported that substantial reductions in measured resistance could occur during seasoning. This work helped draw attention to the fact that the difficulty of a new gripper was not necessarily fixed from its first close and contributed to broader discussion about gripper consistency and meaningful strength comparisons.

Role in Early Gripper Training

PDA appeared during an important period in the development of modern gripper training. In the early 2000s, athletes seeking intermediate steps between Captains of Crush models had considerably fewer choices than are available today.

PDA, Warren Tetting's Beef Builder line, and later Robert Baraban grippers provided additional difficulty levels that allowed athletes to bridge these gaps. Contemporary GripBoard discussions regularly recommended PDA grippers for this purpose.

The SOS .295 was particularly associated with filling the notoriously large gap between the Captains of Crush #3 and #4. One contemporary owner who had compared his .295 against his own #3 and #4 reported that PDA had tested the gripper at approximately a "3.3" equivalent and felt that its actual difficulty closely matched that estimate.

Other PDA Contributions to Gripper Training

PDA produced more than grippers and was responsible for several specialized pieces of grip-training equipment.

One notable example was the Ironhorse Choker Close Collar, a metal collar fitted around a gripper spring to hold the handles at a reduced spread. This allowed athletes to train the final portion of a gripper close with a gripper they could not yet close through its full sweep.

The concept became widely known simply as choked gripper training, and variations of the technique continue to be used by gripper specialists.

PDA also produced numerous other specialized grip-strength products, including thick-handled and pinch-grip equipment.

Collectibility and Legacy

Original PDA SOS grippers have been out of production since approximately 2004 and are now artifacts of the formative period of modern grip sport.

PDA's lasting significance extends beyond the grippers themselves. John Szymanski's experiments with gripper measurement, spring behavior, seasoning and manufacturing variability helped establish subjects that remain important to serious gripper collectors and athletes.

Modern rated-gripper collections routinely record the measured difficulty of each individual gripper rather than assuming all examples of a model are equivalent. While the methods used today differ from PDA's early system, PDA was among the early companies to approach heavy-duty grippers as objects whose mechanical properties could be tested and documented.