Ergonomic Strength Conditioning Grip

Abstract

An ergonomic grip for strength conditioning has a grip body composed of three adjoined, progressively larger oblate spheroids. The major and minor diameters of the spheroids and their spacings combine to form invected surfaces at the junctions of first and second and second and third spheroids. These invected surfaces admit curved fingers of a grasping hand to provide a secure grip while eliminating a common problem of the little finger (4th finger) of the hand being crushed or discomforted. A central shaft passes through the grip body and includes an attachment affordance at one protruding end, and is coupled to a washer at the other end. A central cavity in the grip body allows the spheroids to compliantly conform to the inner concavities of an individual user's palm for increased comfort and positive grip.

Description

PRIORITY: CROSS-REFERENCE TO THE RELATED APPLICATION

This non-provisional utility patent application is a continuation in part of pending U.S. utility application Ser. No. 15/851,334 “Ergonomic Strength Conditioning Grip,” filed Dec. 21, 2017. The entire content of U.S. utility application Ser. No. 15/851,334 “Ergonomic Strength Conditioning Grip,” filed Dec. 21, 2017 is hereby incorporated into this application document by reference.

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a hand grip for attaching to a rope, a cable, a chain, an eyelet, or the like, which resists pulling, so that a person may grab the grip comfortably and securely and exercise against tensile resistance.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

People who exercise for health and strength use a wide variety of equipment, and many popular machines offer a rope, a cord, a wire rope, a cable, a chain, or other flexible material or substantially linear assembly of linked components hereafter referred to as a “cable.” Cables for exercise machines are commonly terminated with an eyelet, a swaged eye, a ring, a clevis, or other point of attachment.

People who want to exercise and condition their arms, upper body, and upper back may want to exercise against large forces, but they are often limited by the grip strength required for their hands to pass the larger forces in the cable along through their forearms and onto these larger muscle groups. Many people who try overall muscle conditioning regimens are discouraged by discomfort of the gripping tasks required of current and inferior products, and may give up before experiencing the pleasure and other benefits of a healthier and better conditioned body. Also, many other cable attachments tend to place a user's wrists and shoulders in an unnatural position which causes stress in those joints.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention is an improved grip for the human hand for coupling to a cable of an exercise machine. With other available devices, grip strength is a preliminary requirement before exercising larger muscles of the upper body, shoulders and the back can be undertaken effectively. With these other devices, insufficient grip strength can be uncomfortable and a discouraging or insurmountable obstacle to people having less upper body strength. An improved hand grip can substantially bypass the grip strength requirement, provide comfort, and allow a wider variety of people to experience and achieve the benefits of upper body conditioning.

It is therefore a primary objective of the invention to provide a comfortable and ergonomic grip so even while applying modest grip strength, users can experience and achieve positive results from exercising groups of larger muscles of the upper arm, shoulders, and the back by lifting against forces which are less limited by grip strength. A corollary objective of this invention is to enable people having lesser grip strength to participate in and enjoy conditioning regimens which they would otherwise not enjoy or withstand with other grips and cable end hardware that are uncomfortable or painful to grasp for long periods of time.

Another objective of the invention is to provide a grip body or assembly which can be readily attached to and detached from various types of cable end hardware on exercise machines and attachment points on exercise weights. A corollary objective of the invention to offer a shape complementary to a typical configuration of fingers, thumb, and the shape of the palm of a hand so that compression forces within the body of the grip are applied to areas of the hand best able to withstand these forces without discomfort.

For cables made from wire rope, swaged end fittings often leave a short free end of wire rope protruding from a ferrule. Individual cable strand ends often terminate with sharp facets or burrs which can injure or create discomfort in a gripping hand. It is therefore another objective of the invention to eliminate the need for a gripping hand to come into contact with such uncomfortable or injurious strand ends.

Yet another objective of the invention is for it to be portable and convenient to carry around, so a user who exercises at several locations can easily bring one set of the inventive grip assemblies from one location to another. A corollary objective of the invention is for it to be easy to clean.

Various devices are currently available which attempt to address these challenges, although they may at best meet only one or two aspects of the totality of the requirements.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A further understanding of the nature and advantages of particular embodiments may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the drawings. Similar reference numerals are used to refer to similar components.

FIG. 1 shows an oblate spheroid and its polar axis.

FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a grip assembly in accordance with the invention.

FIGS. 3a and 3b show cross sections of a thumb and fingers in positions of two common modes of a user gripping the invention.

FIGS. 3c and 3d show cross sections of a thumb and fingers in positions of two common modes of a user gripping the invention in an inverted orientation.

FIG. 4 shows a cross section of grip body in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 5 shows a cross section of an alternative embodiment of a grip assembly in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 6 shows a cross section of another alternative embodiment of a grip assembly in accordance with the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CERTAIN EMBODIMENTS

While various aspects and features of certain embodiments have been summarized above, the following detailed description illustrates a few exemplary embodiments in further detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice such embodiments. The described examples are provided for illustrative purposes and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the described embodiments. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that other embodiments of the present invention may be practiced without some of these specific details. Several embodiments are described herein, and while various features are ascribed to different embodiments, it should be appreciated that the features described with respect to one embodiment may be incorporated with other embodiments as well. By the same token, however, no single feature or features of any described embodiment should be considered essential to every embodiment of the invention, as other embodiments of the invention may omit such features.

In this specification, the term “means for . . . ” as used herein including the claims, is to be interpreted according to 35 USC 112 paragraph 6.

Unless otherwise indicated, all numbers herein used to express quantities, dimensions, and so forth, should be understood as being modified in all instances by the term “about.” In this application, the use of the singular includes the plural unless specifically stated otherwise, and use of the terms “and” and “or” means “and/or” unless otherwise indicated. Moreover, the use of the term “including,” as well as other forms, such as “includes” and “included,” should be considered non-exclusive. Also, terms such as “element” or “component” encompass both elements and components comprising one unit and elements and components that comprise more than one unit, unless specifically stated otherwise.

In this specification any singular grammatical gender may subsume any other singular grammatical gender in all cases, and any plural grammatical gender may subsume any other plural grammatical gender in all cases. A user of the invention may be of any biological sex, thus all instances where “he,” “his,” or “him” are written may be replaced by “she,” or “her,” as appropriate, to equivalent meaning, effects, intents, and purposes. Also, grammatically irregular plural forms are recognized as their plain language equivalents, so that terms such as “at least one foot” are understood to be equivalent to “both feet” and other similar phrases of equivalent meaning.

Also in this specification, “weight” and “mass” and the plural forms of these words may be used interchangeably; e.g, masses are used for strength conditioning, but lifting a weight and lifting a mass achieve the same result in strength training. “Lifting” in this specification means any exercise consisting of moving or holding a human body part in position against a force developed by a weight or a friction force such as can be developed by a mechanical brake or a viscous damper. Many mechanisms are designed to generate forces which simulate weights being moved against gravity while the force actually developed by other means, such as pulling on springs or displacing a fluid by means of a piston. The term “lifting” in this specification will encompass all forms of exercising a human body against these weights or physical forces.

In this specification, a “cable” may mean a rope, a cord, a wire rope, a cable, a chain, or other flexible material or substantially linear assembly of linked components which are attached to a weight for lifting as an exercise. Also, fopr this specification the appendages of the hand are herein named, in linear order: the thumb, the first finger, the second finger, the third finger, and the little finger.

Shore A and Shore D durometer measurements are used in this specification to describe deformation behaviours of elastomeric, compliant, or other non-rigid materials used for the grip body of the invention. Testing of such materials and assignment or accordance of a Shore durometer rating figure on the “A” or “D” scales is an established practice within the manufacturing industry of parts like the grip body of the invention, and charts and other examples correlating many common objects made of deformable or compliant materials to their Shore durometer ratings are easily located on the internet and other industry reference publications.

Also within this specification, the word “collinear” for two or more spheroids each having a polar axis shall define an alignment in which all polar axes of all spheroids within a “collinear” set shall be contained within a cylindrical tolerance volume no larger than one-fifth (⅕) of a largest diameter of the largest spheroid which diameter is taken within five (5) degrees of its polar axis.

FIG. 1 shows an oblate spheroid. Within this specification, an oblate spheroid [1] defines as its polar axis [4] a line connecting the two points [2, 2′] on its surface which are furthest within and most distant from the smallest sphere which can circumscribe the entire volume of the spheroid. The major diameter ‘D’ of the oblate spheroid is equal to that of the circumscribing sphere. The major diameter lies on the equator of the spheroid. The minor diameter ‘d’ of an oblate spheroid is the distance between its poles [2, 2′] and the centroid [5] of the spheroid lies along its polar axis at a midpoint between its poles.

The invention is a new and improved grip which is an assembly of parts that together allow a user's hand to grasp an ergonomically shaped body and withstand and exercise against larger lifting forces without having to develop or maintain great grip strength.

FIG. 2 shows a grip assembly [20] in accordance with the invention. A shaft [21] has an attachment affordance [22] which in this embodiment is a widened, swaged area with a hole. This attachment affordance can be attached to many sorts of cable end fitting on exercise machines or on weights, such as hooks, split rings, spiral rings, chain links, and snap links. The shaft is disposed within a central aperture aligned with or close to the central axis of the grip body [10,] with its attachment affordance protruding beyond the grip body. A washer [25] is coupled to the shaft at the other end of the grip body which picks up the compression force in the grip body and transfers it to the central shaft. In various embodiments, the shaft may reside within the central aperture of the grip bode as an interference fit or as a clearance fit; alternatively it may be rigidly or rotatably coupled to the grip body.

A grip body made of a compliant material such as an elastomer with a Shore A durometer between 35 A and 85 A can also deform so as to offer substantial support to individual fingers of a gripping hand, which affords superior comfort and effective transfer of the pulling force of the arm (as opposed to its gripping force,) into the grip body. An alternative embodiment of the grip body can use harder plastic or rubber materials in the range of Shore 30 D to 80 D.

A grip body in accordance with the invention has three progressively larger adjoined oblate spheroids [S1, S2, S3] with their polar axes collinear with a central axis, and their centroids spaced along the central axis. The spacing between spheroids [S1] and [S2] is a dimension ‘a1’ and the spacing between spheroids [S2] and [S3] is a dimension ‘a2.’ The major and minor diameters of spheroid [S1] are denoted ‘D1’ and ‘d1’ respectively in this specifica-tion, so that spheroids [S2] and [S3] have major and minor diameters ‘D2’ and ‘d2,’ and ‘D3’ and ‘d3’ respectively.

The ideal number of spheroids is three because of the three spaces which defined between four grasping fingers. The spheroids are arranged in progressively larger major diameters because these fit best within the combined shape of the interior surfaces of the grasping surface acting opposite to the concave shape of the interior surface of the palm of the gripping hand. The diameter of the third spheroid S3 must be large enough to take in the pulling force of the third finger so that this pulling force does not crush or discomfort the little finger, although when used in an inverted position the largest spheroid [S3] is in contact with the thumb and first finger and not in contact with the little finger.

The invention fits a user's hand and palm better than other devices because (a) it has no bottom flange which would compress the little finger, (b) the progressively larger spheroids of the invention prevent the hand from sliding off the end, (c) largest diameter of the grip body is not located on the end or bottom but instead resides above the bottom, which allows little finger to find its own comfortable gripping diameter.

In contrast, a device such as U.S. Pat. No. 9,421,683 to Savarino is directed to protecting the hand and especially the fleshy parts of the palm from entering into and getting pinched by the opened coils of a spring of an exercise machine. The thin, tapered washer of Savarino is only large enough to engage the thumb and first finger of a typical adult user and is not itself an exercise device. The problem addressed by Saverino, that of preventing pinching hazards of an open spring, is not analogous to the ergonomic problems solved by the invention, since Saverino does not address the problem of how to relieve the little finger from being crushed by the third finger during a lifting exercise.

When the minor diameters of two adjacent adjoined spheroids are sized comparably to or larger than the diameter of a user's larger fingers, then the spheroids can be spaced apart to form an interface with an invected surface therebetween, wherein at least a portion of the invected surface forms an included angle of about 70°, which in this specification shall be defined as 70° plus or minus 10°. This in-folding geometry is particularly effective at deeply admitting the fingers of a gripping hand so that forces developed by an exercising user can be transferred into the grip body without great circular compressive forces (i.e, grip strength) being required.

A user has many options for gripping the invention, but two predominant modes are illustrated in FIGS. 3a and 3b. In these figures and also in FIGS. 3c and 3d, the thumb, the first, second, and third fingers, and the little finger of a hand are labeled [T,] [F1,] [F2,] [F3,] and [F4] respectively. With the grip body [10] of FIG. 3a, the thumb rests in the trough or groove, which is the invected surface between spheroids S1 and S2. Opposite the thumb, the first finger rests above the equator of spheroid S1, the second finger rests in the invected surface between spheroids S1 and S2, the third finger rests in the invected surface between spheroids S2 and S3, and the little finger grasps S3 at or near its equator.

With the grip body [10] of FIG. 3b, the thumb rests in the trough or groove which is the invected surface between spheroids S1 and S2. Opposite the thumb, the first finger rests in the invected surface between spheroids S1 and S2, the second finger rests in the invected surface between spheroids S2 and S3, and the third finger grasps S3 at or near its equator, and the little finger cups the underside of S3 in concert with the third finger.

FIGS. 3c and 3d show cross sections of a thumb and fingers in positions of two common modes of a user gripping the invention in an inverted orientation. Here the spheroids S1, S2, and S3 are reversed top to bottom. In FIG. 3c, the first finger rests above the equator of spheroid S3 and the second finger and the thumb both rest in the invected surface between spheroids S2 and S3. When the thumb and a finger reside in the same groove with the grip oriented with larger spheroids above smaller ones, the thumb and finger in the same groove provide a nearly complete ring of support of the spheroid above them, so a substantial amount of exercise force can be transferred into the grip body at that interface even though the region of support is less than a complete circle. This capability of the invention is a major aspect of how it allows a user to exercise larger muscles of the body without requiring the user's hand and grip to develop great crushing strength around the grip body.

The third finger rests in the invected surface between spheroids S1 and S2, and the little finger rests on spheroid S1. The thumb can also rest roughly opposite the first finger, on or above the equator of spheroid S3. In this position the thumb and first finger clamp the grip from above to seat the grip into a concave region of the palm of the hand which is naturally formed when gripping a bulbous object or a ball.

FIG. 3d shows another alternate mode of gripping the invention when it is inverted. In this grip mode, which resembles how one holds an ice cream cone, the thumb and first finger both rest in the invected surface between spheroids S2 and S3. As above, when the thumb and a finger reside in the same groove, a nearly complete ring of support of the spheroid above them is established and a substantial amount of exercise force can be transferred into the grip body. The second finger rests in the invected surface between spheroids S1 and S2, and the third finger cups the underside of spheroid S1. The little finger can optionally abut the third finger or may be left extended and not participate in gripping.

Gripping the invention with the attachment affordance or eyelet protruding below the hand allows a user to achieve a neutral grip when raising the forearms against weight from below. When exercising with weights, a palms-up (overhand) grip and a palms-down (underhand) grip are commonly employed on horizontal bars or handles. These hand positions can cause elbow pain because they can strain the muscles on either side of the forearm. In contrast, a neutral grip allows a user's palms to face each other with the thumbs atop the grips. The neutral grip is less likely to cause injuries, especially with novice users who may not be exercising symmetrically, or those who have developed muscle imbalances over the years due to handedness or a previous history of sub-optimal workout regimens.

The inventive grip can help a user gain strength evenly on both sides of the body, which not only makes the body more symmetrical but can also reduce potential injuries. A primary benefit of the invention is by allowing a user to achieve a neutral grip awhile working against pairs of cables oriented in almost any direction, the user has opportunity and freedom to isolate whichever muscle group he or she desires to work on, without developing joint pain. Using the invention, an exercising person can work particular muscles or muscle groups to failure, rather than having to stop short due to joint discomfort or worry of injury.

FIG. 4 shows another grip body [10] also in accordance with the invention. A grip body [10] is composed of three oblate spheroids [13] adjoined, and has an aperture [11] collinear with its central axis. The interfaces of adjacent spheroids have fillets [17] for improved manufacturability and resistance to splitting under tension. The spheroids are spaced apart so that surfaces between the first and second and the second and third spheroids form invected surfaces which are sized to admit fingers of the hand. FIG. 4 also shows the central aperture having a counterbore cavity [19] of a larger diameter than the rest of the aperture, and a depth.

FIG. 5. shows a cross-section of an embodiment of the invention in which the grip assembly [20] has a grip body [10] is composed of three prolate spheroids, spaced apart along a central axis so that a portion of the invected surface between adjacent spheroids forms a tangent cone with an apex angle that is equal to or greater than 70°. The grip body has an aperture extending through the grip body, and a washer [25] is disposed within a counterbore or an internal cavity which is also part of the aperture. The attachment affordance of the shaft [21] in this embodiment is an eye of an eyebolt disposed within the aperture and protruding beyond the grip body. This particular eyebolt is a threaded eyebolt, with threads [28] on the opposite end from the eye, and the washer is coupled to the eyebolt by at least one threaded nut [26.] The bottom-most nut may be an acorn nut for functional or decorative effect.

FIG. 6 shows a grip assembly [20] using another alternative for the grip body. This grip body [10′] includes an aperture having an internal cavity [19′] made up of at least one cylindrical portion and a conical portion also called a frustum. A larger diameter, thin washer [25′] such as a fender washer is fitted onto an eye and double-nutted into place. Double nutting substantially prevents either nut from coming loose on its threads and thus substantially prevents the assembly from coming apart. The nut installed first is a regular hex nut [26′] and it is positioned so as to force the outer perimeter of the washer to engage and press into the conical interior wall in the aperture of the grip body. The hex nut and the reaction force from the compressed material of the grip body substantially immobilize the washer. In use, the axial components of compressing forces absorbed from a gripping hand are transferred into the washer and then to the shaft of the eye. The large central cavity of the grip body allows the spheroids to compliantly conform to the user's fingers and the inner concavities of the palm of the hand for increased comfort and positive grip.

A detailed discussion of a conical grip of U.S. Pat. No. 9,370,685 to Watry is made in the parent application. The deeply invected grooves between said adjoined spheroids of the invention conform to the interior surfaces of the fingers of a gripping hand. Neither the small spiral groove nor the small spiral bead features of the conical grip of Watry confer any significant grip advantage approaching the advantage of admitting a substantial portion of any finger or a thumb into a deeply invected gap of grip material.

For the above described grips to be effective, the spheroids of a grip body of the invention must be sized to roughly equal or exceed the diameters of users' grasping fingers, and they must be spaced apart so that the invected surfaces or grooves are deep enough to admit enough of a portion of a finger to adequately transfer the pulling force from the finger into the spheroid below the invected surface. Also, the grip body must be strong enough to withstand compressive internal loads over its usage life, while also being compressible enough to distort slightly to conform to the inner contours of the hand, so that a user can establish the best possible grip. Thus, the progressively sized beads of a grocery bag handle of U.S. Pat. No. 8,020,910 to Startzell might at first appear relevant to the invention, but the number of adjoined beads do not physically relate to the number of fingers of a human hand, and the size of the beads are too small for individual fingers to enter and operate on the handle in the manner of the invention, so Startzell is not analogous to the invention.

Although the beads of Startzell as a whole may present a friction grip within the fingers of a user, the load direction borne by the Startzell device is perpendicular to the invention in use, and thus Startzell is not available as an analogous solution to the objective of conditioning large muscles of the upper body during exercises which produce resisting forces substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of a grip or a grip aid. The invention is not a carrying handle, it is a gripping device for repetitive exercises.

Looking in the opposite direction of feature sizes and scales, U.S. Pat. No. 359,994 to Brunner includes a flared handle which can sometimes be attached to its ends. Although the visual image may remotely resemble a portion of the adjoined spheroids of the invention, the Brunner device is designed to receive in one mode the whole hand between the spheres as a typical dumbbell weight. Its other mode as an exercise device manipulating cords passed though the handles to raise weights from a floor while abducting its handles outward is entirely unrelated to the problems solved by the invention or the benefits of the improved grip geometry of the invention.

Similarly, a knob such as is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,360 to Shiban is directed toward grip strength conditioning. The washer and center rod in Shiban take up bending moments in use, and nothing in Shiban addresses the challenge of protecting the little finger from crush forces in the axial direction of an established grip. The invention allows such a secure grip that larger muscles have been observed to fail against overpowering demand before a user's grip on the device fails. A human hand grasping a single sphere will fail to maintain the grip before the user's larger muscles reach their own force limits. Thus, no single-ball grip device is truly analogous to the three progressively larger adjoined spheroids of the invention. Furthermore, the embodiment shown in FIG. 6, with its substantially-sized internal cavity offers some compliance to the gripping hand of a user which is not available from a solid mass or a substantially solid mass with a single through-hole as is seen in Shiban.

The set of several swelled masses of the hairbrush handle of US patent application 2018/0020817 to Wedlock are also not analogous to the invention because the problem of crushing the little finger as addressed and solved by the invention is entirely foreign to users or inventors of hairbrushes.

In sizing the invention, the inventor has found ranges of effective dimensions for the major and minor diameters and the spacings between their centroids as shown in FIG. 2. The largest and smallest effective embodiments within the scope of the invention are listed in the table following, and a best mode size within the extremes is also listed. The ratio of each spheroid's minor to major diameter, and the ratio of spacings between first and second and second and third spheroid centroids are also computed.

TABLE 1
Size Ranges for Effective Grip Bodies
Smallest effective size:
	S1:	D = 1.136	d = 0.684	D/d = 0.602
	S2:	D = 1.537	d = 0.860	D/d = 0.559
	S3:	D = 1.940	d = 1.196	D/d = 0.616
	a1: 0.640 a2: 0.838 a1/a2: 0.764
Best mode size:
	S1:	D = 1.547	d = 1.050	D/d = 0.679
	S2:	D = 1.989	d = 1.153	D/d = 0.580
	S3:	D = 2.259	d = 1.904	D/d = 0.842
	a1: .766 a2: 0.968 a1/a2: 0.791
Largest effective size:
	S1:	D = 1.973	d = 1.240	D/d = 0.628
	S2:	D = 2.508	d = 1.504	D/d = 0.600
	S3:	D = 2.855	d = 2.284	D/d = 0.800
	a1: 0.947 a2: 1.227 a1/a2: 0.771
	Abbreviation Key:
	D = major diameter
	d = minor diameter
	S1 = Spheroid 1
	S2 = Spheroid 2
	S3 = Spheroid 3
	a1 = centroid spacing between S1 and S2
	a2 = centroid spacing between S2 and S3

Although the scope of the invention includes invected grooves having included angles of 70° and greater, with good gripping available with a 100° to 135° included angle, larger angles exceeding 150° create shallow grooves which, like the Watry invention, begin to require great grip strength before effective tensions for body conditioning can be developed. In contrast, the included angles formed between adjoined spheroids of predetermined size within the ranges of the table above are related to the effective diameter of a gripping hand in a range able to sustain axial forces in the forearm commensurate with those developed by large muscles of the upper back and the upper torso. However, the design of the groove must also allow easy and complete cleaning of sweat or foreign matter. Although deep, narrow grooves can help convey sweat away from gripping fingers and eliminate slipping problems, if made too deep a groove can collect foreign matter and become unsanitary. The grip body material should thus be waterproof so that sweat or biological matter are not absorbed and retained therein.

A matte surface texture such as Mold-tech 11020, 11030, or similar is preferred, and can be molded in during manufacture of a grip body. These textures require more generous draft angles and preclude deeply invected grooves between the adjoined spheroids of a grip body.

While certain features and aspects have been described with respect to exemplary embodiments, one skilled in the art will recognize that numerous modifications are possible. Also, while certain functionality is ascribed to certain system components, unless the context dictates otherwise, this functionality can be distributed among various other system components in accordance with the several embodiments.

Moreover, while the procedures of the methods and processes described herein are described in a particular order for ease of description, unless the context dictates otherwise, various procedures may be reordered, added, and/or omitted in accordance with various embodiments. Furthermore, the procedures described with respect to one method or process may be incorporated within other described methods or processes; likewise, system components described according to a particular structural configuration and/or with respect to one system may be organized in alternative structural configurations and/or incorporated within other described systems. Hence, while various embodiments are described with or without certain features for ease of description and to illustrate exemplary aspects of those embodiments, the various components and/or features described herein with respect to a particular embodiment can be substituted, added, and/or subtracted from among other described embodiments, unless the context dictates otherwise. Consequently and in summary, although many exemplary embodiments are described above, it will be appreciated that the invention is intended to cover all modifications and equivalents within the scope of the following claims.

Claims

1. A grip assembly comprising:

a grip body having a central axis, a first, second, and third spheroid of progressively larger diameters adjoined and spaced along said central axis, invected surfaces formed between said first and second spheroids and said second and third spheroids, each spheroid having a polar axis that is collinear with said central axis of said grip body, said grip body further comprising an aperture extending through said grip body, and

a shaft disposed within said aperture and having an attachment affordance protruding beyond said grip body.

2. The grip assembly of claim 1, wherein said aperture further comprises an internal cavity having a cylindrical portion.

3. The grip assembly of claim 1, wherein said aperture further comprises an internal cavity having a conical portion.

4. The grip assembly of claim 3, wherein a washer is disposed within said conical portion of said internal cavity of said grip body.

5. The grip assembly of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the invected surface forms an included angle that is greater than 70°.

6. The grip assembly of claim 1, wherein said attachment affordance is an eye of an eyebolt.

7. The grip assembly of claim 1, wherein said attachment affordance is an eye of a threaded eyebolt, and said washer is coupled to said eyebolt by at least one threaded nut.

8. The grip assembly of claim 1, wherein said grip body comprises a material having a hardness registering between 30 D and 80 D according to a Shore D durometer scale.

9. The grip assembly of claim 1, wherein the major diameters of all spheroids are between 1.136 inches and 2.855 inches inclusive, the minor diameters of all spheroids are between 0.684 inches and 2.284 inches inclusive, and the spacing between a centroids of spheroid and an adjacent spheroid is between 0.640 inches and 1.227 inches inclusive.

10. A grip assembly comprising:

a grip body having a central axis, three adjoined spheroids of progressively larger diameters spaced along said central axis and forming two invected surfaces therebetween, each spheroid having a polar axis that is collinear with said central axis of said grip body, wherein at least a portion of an invected surface forms an included angle that is greater than 70°, said grip body further comprising an aperture extending through said grip body, and

an eyebolt disposed within said aperture and having an attachment affordance protruding beyond said grip body.

11. The grip assembly of claim 10, wherein said aperture further comprises an internal cavity having a cylindrical portion.

12. The grip assembly of claim 11, wherein a washer is disposed within said internal cavity of said grip body.

13. The grip assembly of claim 10, wherein said aperture further comprises an internal cavity having a conical portion.

14. The grip assembly of claim 13, wherein a washer is disposed within said conical portion of said internal cavity of said grip body.

15. The grip assembly of claim 14, wherein said washer is coupled to said eyebolt by a threaded nut.

16. The grip assembly of claim 15, wherein said washer is coupled to said eyebolt by an acorn nut.

17. The grip assembly of claim 10, wherein at least a portion of the invected surface forms an included angle that is greater than 70°.

18. The grip assembly of claim 10, wherein said grip body comprises a material having a hardness registering between 35 A and 85 A according to a Shore A durometer scale.

19. The grip assembly of claim 10, wherein the major diameters of all spheroids are between 1.136 inches and 2.855 inches inclusive, the minor diameters of all spheroids are between 0.684 inches and 2.284 inches inclusive, and the spacing between centroids of a spheroid and an adjacent spheroid is between 0.640 inches and 1.227 inches inclusive.