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Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

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Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#11

Post by twobitshifter »

I recently bought a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. It’s a split design but still one piece. It took me about a week to get used to. As a touch typist I had one key that Microsoft stuck on the left, that I type with the right, B, which is dead center on the bottom row on a usual keyboard. I don’t know which hand it canonically belongs to but it didn’t take me long to switch.

I purchased this more proactively and it’s probably unnecessary. I did get RSI symptoms while working preCOVID. When I switched to work from home, I used my Microsoft media keyboard and Logitech mxMaster mouse. The RSI went away. We briefly returned to the office and within a week I was getting pain in my right hand again. The office mouse was a cheap flatter Logitech mouse with no tilt or thumb test. I believe that mousing about was the actual cause of my RSI and that the improved grip of the mxMaster was enough to fix it. Like OP sometimes it can just be small changes.

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#12

Post by robotmay »

nickjj wrote: post #8

> In my personal experience I found home-row typing to actually be unergonomic mostly because of the additional bend required from moving both hands closer together. I've always thought this too. I've been typing a lot since about 1996 and never got into home row typing. It never felt natural or comfortable and I don't have abnormally sized hands either. It just felt like going against the system. I don't want to jin…

The thing that always confused me about home-row typing is that it seems oddly hard to hit Enter. My only guess to that is that it works better with an ANSI keyboard than with an ISO keyboard.

I also found I type rarely with my pinkies, and in fact I do pretty much only use them for Ctrl + Shift. Using the Shift on the opposite hand from the target key most of the time took some practice but I think lends itself well to not having to over-stretch the pinkies :)

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#13

Post by dwdz »

I'm using this[1] and I love it. Adding 1 column of spacing between two hands is real game changer. I've tried Colemak and Workman before but I found qwerty-wide to be more comfortable than both of them. It's also much easier to learn, especially if you're Vim user.

[1] https://www.keyboard-design.com/letterlayout.html?layout=qwe...

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#14

Post by ping_pong »

I guess everyone is different. For me, laptops especially the MacBook help. The mouse was the problem for me, and when I started getting RSI over 20 years ago, I discovered that when I used a pen-type mouse, everything cleared away. It was because I was using the mouse at the side of the keyboard and that was causing my wrist to twist, which ended up aggravating the nerve in the wrist that ran up and down my arm.

I ended up typing on an ergonomic keyboard, with my mouse in the middle. Whenever I need my mouse, I would push away my keyboard and use the mouse where the mouse is right in the center with my hand slightly askew at a similar angle to where I write with a pencil. This prevented the nerve from being twisted, and my RSI has largely gone away since then.

The MacBook keyboard with the mousepad also in the middle seems to work well for me as well. The main thing is ensuring I don't twist my hand away away from my body that causes the nerve to get compressed.

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#15

Post by AQuantized »

jarnagin wrote: post #10

A lot of people really underestimate the impact that mobility and strengthening can have addressing issues with RSI. If you're struggling with RSI, consider going to physical therapy as your condition may be caused by a wide variety of issues that aren't obvious based on the pain you're having. My own experience was that I dealt with ulnar nerve RSI for about a year. During that time I wore braces at night and tried…

What sort of exercises do you do to help with this? I've been finding it very hard to work on shoulder strength, especially the scapula, without just impinging it more

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#16

Post by robotmay »

throwaway_moo wrote: post #9

This is not excellent advice regarding the keyboard used. Instead: - learn about the risk factors: https://kinesis-ergo.com/solutions/keyboard-risk-factors/ Keep in mind that there are hundreds of tendons in our hands, so the pattern of inflammation is very personal. Anecdotes are not your friend. - use split keyboards (or any ergo keyboard with enough space between hands) with inclination to limit pronation - use or…

The article does address both split keyboards and ortho-linear layouts. I disagree with both, personally.

Interestingly the Kinesis article you link supports the arguments I make in the article, but their solution is obviously a split keyboard because that's what they sell, rather than offering an alternative typing style. My typing style avoids all the risks they identify.

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#17

Post by robotmay »

AQuantized wrote: post #15
jarnagin wrote: post #10

A lot of people really underestimate the impact that mobility and strengthening can have addressing issues with RSI. If you're struggling with RSI, consider going to physical therapy as your condition may be caused by a wide variety of issues that aren't obvious based on the pain you're having. My own experience was that I dealt with ulnar nerve RSI for about a year. During that time I wore braces at night and tried…

What sort of exercises do you do to help with this? I've been finding it very hard to work on shoulder strength, especially the scapula, without just impinging it more

I can heartily recommend folk music and ridiculous instruments ;)

But more seriously, I did tai-chi in the past and found that a very reasonable low-impact way of developing strength in various areas.

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#18

Post by elanning »

I have suffered from fairly bad RSI/tendonitis issues since my early 20s. Now a days I have a split keyboard and use wasd keys for my mouse, which is slower, but causes less pain. I would not wish this kind of pain on anyone. It has greatly negatively impacted my life. Hopefully future treatments will give some help, the current treatments are very lackluster.

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#19

Post by esja »

I've been typing for 36 years now (since I was a child), and have never had RSI once, or anything close to it.

I think it's because I never learned to touch-type "properly". I use most of my fingers, and I type very fast, but I'm not hitting the "correct" keys with the "correct" fingers - I'm just following whatever comfortable patterns I've burned into muscle memory over all these years.

If someone asked me to describe exactly what I do - where my hands and fingers hover, which ones hit which keys, etc., I wouldn't be able to answer properly without first filming myself.

I did once try to learn to touch-type "properly". It didn't feel comfortable and started to hurt after only doing it for a little while, so I stopped.

Re: Typing, RSI, and what I do differently

#20

Post by Xevi »

ericbarrett wrote: post #2

I had a brief but serious bout of RSI in my right wrist in my early 30s. Ergo keyboards and novel typing layouts didn’t help at all, nor did a wrist brace. What eventually relieved it was a trackball (which the author of this article also used) and a wrist pad for that hand. I avoided normal mouses, trackpads, and the IBM/Lenovo “mouse nipple,” going so far as to bring my trackball with my laptop. I’ve switched back…

Which trackball did you use? I have tried almost every different kind of ergonomic keyboard / mouse alleviate my pain, but I haven't tried trackballs yet.
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