Solving repetitive strain injury from typing
Over the years I’ve had a lot of hand and arm problems from using a keyboard too much. For the last couple of years, though, I’ve been pain-free and twitch-free. (There was an extended time when my little fingers and thumbs spasmed annoyingly day and night.)
There are lots of different kinds of keyboarding injuries, and lots of different solutions to them. I’ve changed my chair, my keyboard, my keyboard layout, my desk height, and so on. But one thing that’s made the most difference for me, and I suspect would help a lot of people, is strength training. The reason I believe it would be so helpful for a variety of different kinds of injuries is that low-force repetitive motions — i.e. wiggling your fingers lightly in an awkward position — is inherently weakening. That’s right, you use your fingers to type a lot, and you actually get really, really weak. Like, ridiculously weak.
I grew up on a farm, milking cows by hand. I had some kind of deeply held assumption that I’d developed an iron grip for life. When I started using a computer a lot, I never would have believed anyone who told me I’d become a weakling in the space of six months or a year, yet looking back on it, that’s about how long it took for the problems to start.
Almost universally, when someone complains about RSI, or when I see someone flexing their hand or massaging their forearm painfully, a quick look at the person’s forearms reveals that the muscles are horribly atrophied. Sometimes these programmers look like strange insects; their arms are just bones and skin.
“Grip trainers” — those little springloaded things you grab and squeeze — are not the solution in my opinion, and may lead to more injuries. I am not a doctor, so take this with a grain of salt. But I believe that the muscles and connective tissues of the entire arm complex need to be developed, not only for strength, but for stability, and this applies to the nerve systems as well. (A lot of strength is neural, not muscular.) Coordination, flexibility, stamina, speed, and precision also need to be developed.
Rather than getting tunnel vision and looking at the grip muscles — those muscles that curl your fingers toward your palm — I believe that a lot of other muscles need to be involved, too. One example: hold something heavy, palm-down, and then raise the knuckles in a reverse wrist curl. Those muscles are vital, and they get as weak as any others, but they’re hard to imagine training with a spring in your palm. That’s why “grip trainers” aren’t the whole solution.
I suggest wrapping your hands around something heavy, and doing hard things with it. Kettlebell training is an easy thing to recommend if you have proper coaching. Pullups, pushups, yoga, gymnastics, all kinds of weight training potentially including Olympic lifting, and jumping rope are all good workouts of various parts of the wrist/hand/arm complex. For a while now, I’ve carried a jump rope with me when I travel. Double-unders are a fantastic workout you can do anywhere, and they work pretty much your whole arm and everything attached (chest, back, shoulders, neck) as well as your legs, and if you haven’t done them, the cardio intensity is not to be underestimated.
In addition, there is a gadget that I love: the Powerball. This little gizmo generates force through precession, and your job is to work back against it, adding energy to the ball and making it spin faster. You can hold it in a variety of grips and move it in several different patterns, including holding it as still as possible. It will exert an amazing amount of force back against you, if you have the skill, speed, and coordination to work against it. You can spend a few minutes a day with this and not only make your hands/wrists/arms burn like hell, but develop and harden all of the tissues involved. It takes a little while to get the hang of it, but it’s probably the best overall prevention of RSI I’ve ever used, given its combination of weight/price/size/go-anywhere-ness.
Really? Amazon affiliate linking on the Powerball?
Jason
2 Nov 12 at 10:45 am
@Jason: Really? Does it cost you more with the affiliate link?
Ryan
2 Nov 12 at 12:03 pm
@Ryan & @”there is a gadget that I love”
It makes me question the sincerity of the post and the integrity of the writer.
Jason
2 Nov 12 at 2:20 pm
Jason,
I’ve linked to Amazon for years when I mention products. It’s not as though the purpose of the blog is to find excuses to insert links; I could have mentioned and linked to a lot more products. I honestly love my Powerball and credit it with helping me stay healthy. And Amazon helps offset a little of my hosting fees.
It doesn’t go any deeper than that; that’s really all there is to it.
Xaprb
2 Nov 12 at 3:29 pm
For me it is the tightening of muscles and tendons originating from my back down to my wrists. I have found a particular stretching excersize that gets rid of the pain. While no body builder I do renovation work on cars and houses in my spare time. So I don’t know that I can agree with Baron on that point, I think its more of the case that with exercise comes.stretching. I do believe he might have a real good case for the light nimble work causing RSI.
Rolf
2 Nov 12 at 8:13 pm
Rolf, can you describe or link to the stretch? I have persistent mobility and strength problems in my shoulders. I’m always working on them and so far I’ve found relief, but not a total cure.
Xaprb
2 Nov 12 at 9:15 pm
Xaprb: One thing you may consider is doing something like this:
Anyway, I could never get the hang of that thing. I should try again — my wife has one.
The physical therapist I saw said that my issue was actually tightness in the pectoral area, and had me do a bunch of exercises designed to strengthen the opposing muscles in my back and get me to stop holding my shoulders forward.
I should really also get different handlebars for my bike.
Tim McCormack
3 Nov 12 at 1:34 pm
Baron – a great post! I’ve struggled a bit with this stuff, and this is helpful. One thing I wanted to mention is that when I was at Friendster, a lot of us game-ified the scores we got on powerball, it was a great amount of fun. :)
John Allspaw
4 Nov 12 at 7:01 am
I had a Powerball when I was a teenager, but I don’t remember my scores. Since getting the one I have now, I’m up to 11,222 on my right hand, and somewhere around 9k for my left hand. I don’t usually turn on the score-o-meter though :-)
Xaprb
5 Nov 12 at 10:09 am
This matches with my experience. I’ve been pain free through a variety of techniques: Kinesis keyboard and not doing work on laptops, a break timer that I can’t disable or “snooze” (5 minutes rest every 45 minutes), and exercise. I also believe that regular exercise helps. I do a variety of free weight lifting, and occasional rock climbing and yoga. As you said: I think all these activities indirectly strengthen my wrists/hands/arms/shoulders.
Evan Jones
5 Nov 12 at 3:14 pm
First and foremost, I think the keyboard matters here the most having used some horrible keyboards before (many tend to trivialize this aspect). Till now, I have used Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 and Logitech Wave (wireless), both are good. I think the wireless aspect is something not be ignored since it allows you to move it based on comfort.
Another aspect, not mentioned above, is that you need to either
use laptop keyboard (assuming it is not the ‘chicklet’ type and
really good) with touchpad, or if using a separate keyboard (like
me) then avoid mouse usage as much as possible. I often compare
mouse usage to a disk seek, its like your palm has to ‘seek’ lot
more, do the mouse thing, and move back to original position.
Also, tune your desktop environment to your need so that you are
comfortable with key bindings (one default binding doesn’t fit all).
Mouse also matters (ie. whenever you use it), large rigid mice
are bad.
Lastly, as has been stressed above, weight training helps here.
Certain stretching exercises shouldn’t harm either. Posture also
matters since a wrong posture may/can cause indirect pain (which can
radiate to the arms) or direct pain as well, which means, get a
good chair (don’t hasten on this). Also, move around often
(like once a hour or so), drinking fluids help here :)
Raghavendra Prabhu
9 Dec 12 at 8:22 am