Active Hands gripping aids could allow you to take part in a wide range of household and leisure activities. Our grip aids are designed to enable you to firmly hold items, such as a hammer or trowel, helping you get a grip on activities like DIY and gardening, or playing on computer consoles like the Nintendo Wii. If you’re the sporty type, they could allow you to work out at the gym, play snooker or even help you ski.
28/12/2025
Get into the gym with a Limb Difference with Active Hands!
21/12/2025
A bit of festive fun with the Active Hands team!
19/12/2025
We're officially CLOSED FOR CHRISTMAS! Our team are enjoying a well deserved rest… we'll be back in the office on Monday 5th January 2026!
18/12/2025
Top tip to pace yourself for Christmas… Peel the night before!
18/12/2025
What did we get up to in 2025?
2025 has been a busy year for Active Hands. Take a look at our staff highlights - new products, new faces and new homes!
16/12/2025
If your last minute panic shopping… look to active hands for our top 5 last minute gifts!
15/12/2025
It's not too late to make your yorkie puds and pop them in the freezer ready for the big day!
12/12/2025
12/12/2025
Cook with independence with our top 5 kitchen gadgets!
🍳Food Prep Board
🍳Right Angled Knives
🍳Push Whisk
🍳Palm Peeler
🍳Automatic Bottle Opener
11/12/2025
Come to the gym with me…
09/12/2025
Santa is getting his workout in ready for the big day!
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Our mission is to help people achieve more active and inclusive lives – giving them independent access to a variety of activities that would be impossible without Active Hands gripping aids.
Frustrated by the limitations caused by weak grip or poor hand function? Active Hands gripping aids could allow you to take part in a wide range of household and leisure activities.
Our grip aids are designed to enable you to firmly hold items, such as a hammer or trowel, helping you get a grip on activities like DIY and gardening, or playing on computer consoles like the Nintendo Wii. If you’re the sporty type, they could allow you to work out at the gym, play snooker or even help you ski.
Hi, my name is Rob Smith. I am a Director of the Active Hands Company and the designer of our gripping aids. In 1996 I was a twenty year old student studying Mechanical Engineering at Warwick University. During a holiday with friends I fell down a cliff and suffered a high-level spinal cord injury which left me with partial paralysis in all four limbs. After spending nine months in a Salisbury spinal rehabilitation unit I was able to return to University as a disabled student to complete my degree course.
My injury was an incomplete injury (the spinal cord was not completely severed) so I am able to stand and to walk very short distances using crutches, however, I use a wheelchair for many day-to-day activities. It was hard to come to terms with the restricted movement in my lower body but I began to realise that it was actually the frustration of having very poor function and strength in my hands that restricted my life much more. Although I was able to find suitable equipment to overcome my mobility issue, I just could not find anything that enabled me to overcome my grip problems. Activities that were easy before my injury were now completely unavailable to me as my hand function would not allow me to do them. It was at this point that I began designing gripping aids to enable me to grasp hold of my independence again. I began working with my mum on her sewing machine to try and solve some of these gripping issues. After a number of prototypes and some experimentation and testing with different methods, materials and designs we came up with the basic designs which have developed into the core of the Active Hands Gripping aids we sell today.
The products were initially designed for my personal use but some of the people that I played wheelchair rugby with saw me using them in the gym and showed an interest in obtaining a pair. At this point we realised that we had the potential to help more people with hand function disabilities and we decided to set up the Active Hands Company. Our General Purpose gripping aid was our first product. It is the most versatile of our products and can be used for gripping objects in the gym; outdoors, such as for kayaking or biking; in the house (for cleaning and doing DIY); in the garden and kitchen; and for activities such as snooker or holding Nintendo Wii controllers. New uses for our gripping aids are being discovered all the time.
As time went on we developed new products and gained knowledge of other disability groups who could also benefit from our gripping products. In 2008 Active Hands became a Limited Company and we now sell direct to end users all over the world via our website and through resellers in other countries all around the world.
We are still a family owned and run business and we pride ourselves in the quality of our products, our knowledge of the issues faced by those with grip problems and our customer service.
Personally I have been involved in disability sport for many years including playing at a high level in wheelchair rugby and now as a team GB T52 Wheelchair racer. We understand the training and levels to which our products need to perform to enable users to push themselves to the limit to achieve these levels of performance.
Our mission is to reach and help more and more people with hand function disabilities to enable them to take part in numerous activities as independently as possible. We pride ourselves in working with those with hand functions across a wide spectrum of disabilities and activity levels from Paralympic gold medal winners to leisure gardeners and from injured military personnel to small children. We know from our own experience how frustrating a lack of hand function can be. Hopefully with Active Hands helping you, you can overcome many of those frustrations enabling you to do activities that you previously thought were impossible. Who knows what you could achieve…
