Comments on: Solving repetitive strain injury from typing

By: Raghavendra Prabhu

Raghavendra Prabhu — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 12:22:42 +0000

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 :)

By: Evan Jones

Evan Jones — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 19:14:43 +0000

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.

By: Xaprb

Xaprb — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:09:18 +0000

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 :-)

By: John Allspaw

John Allspaw — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 11:01:51 +0000

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. :)

By: Tim McCormack

Tim McCormack — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:34:27 +0000

Xaprb: One thing you may consider is doing something like this:

the Powerball [non-referral]

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.