Stopping the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career (2016)
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I started having problems with RSI about five years ago, and I tried and failed to get relief from quite a few different things, including the Mindbody Prescription, but what ultimately helped me the most was arm and grip exercises: pull ups, deadlifts, farmer's walks.
If you're going to do _anything_ for 8 hours a day, even sitting, you should be taking measures to make sure it doesn't impact your health.
Lifting weights has the best return on time invested I've experienced, period. You can make progress and eliminate 90% of physical discomfort with 3 hours in the gym a week. All you really need are the main compounds. Throw in a couple cardio sessions if you're feeling ambitious and you will gift yourself years back onto your life and avoid all sorts of aches and pains.
Note: I see Starting Strength recommended here too, which I've also heard good things about from my experienced weightlifting friends. I think they're very similar programs, and that book has a lot of good detail on technique.
I'd argue that at the novice range the extra two sets of volume aren't required - you will literally adapt to anything at this point. That's why there are so many programs that people feel great on for the first three months before they stop making progress. I do, however, like the row instead of the power clean, as many gyms don't have a setup for a power clean, and it's a technically challenging movement. Many years ago when I first started I did starting strength with a row substituted for the power clean, and that took me a good 8 months before I stopped making progress, at which point I jumped over to a 5x5 intermediate program.
If you are over 35 (and sedentary), I'd really recommend reading "The Barbell Prescription" https://www.amazon.com/Barbell-Prescription-Strength-Trainin... — it will be a much better guide than most advice available online, which seems to be directed at youngsters.
It kind of comes down to how much variation you want in your routine, and if you are focusing on body building or strength (or both).
Personally I started with Strong Lifts 5x5 which is a good intro. Has it's own app, easy to follow, and the guy who developed the program has a great website with video tutorials and written instructions for each lift. Personally I found it to be too much squatting (you do 5 sets of 5 squats every time you go, which adds up quick).
I then moved on to Greyskill LP, which is similar but instead of doing 5x5 for every lift you do 2 sets of 5 and then the last set until (almost) failure. I mixed in a bunch of accessories as well. Overall I felt this was yielding the same results as 5x5 but with less time spent in the gym each time. (once you start hitting the upper end of your strength, 5x5 begins to take between 1.5 - 2 hours each time when you account for warm ups and rest periods).
I have recently switched to 5/3/1 which is more for building mass than strength, and is a bit more complicated to keep track of.
reddit/r/fitness has a ton of good resources. It's easy to get lost in the weeds, but as long as you're hitting your main lifts and doing at least 3 sets of each, adding weight each time, you will make progress. Don't get too bogged down in adding accessories, as they are meant to help improve your weak areas when you get stuck on the main lifts.
Note to new lifters: Most important tool to buy is a spiral notebook and ballpoint pen; plan out all your exercises, sets, and weights before going to the gym, do reps for each set till muscle failure then write down the number of reps achieved, and use that historical set data to design next gym visit, this is the worlds simplest lifting program.
Another general note about "programs" is lifting is much like diet in that there are some plans that are very simple and some that are very complicated and both CAN work well although which works best for which person requires experiment. For example there are extremely complicated diet programs with incredible attention to detail and discipline, and then there's "Don't eat it if your ancestors couldn't eat it" and both can work very well (although one sells many more books than the other...).
Likewise the ridiculous simple workout plan is, on the short term, do about three sets with a five minute break in between, a warmup, max, and somewhat less than max, and on the long term plan your workouts such that you get muscle failure at over a dozen reps on the warmup set, and about 7 reps on the max set and 3rd set. Barrels of ink have been spilled on the topic of do two sets vs three sets or aim for muscle failure at exactly 15 for warmup as opposed to 12 or power lifters should max at 4 reps vs body builders should max at precisely 9 reps. All of which is probably true for various individuals in various situations. A better use of your time than reading and researching all that, is make very small changes to that, then look at your spiral notebook and see what is working for you personally.
The only other programs or rules to follow apply to all plans, its very hard to hurt yourself by moving too smooth, or too light of a weight, but the opposite is not true.
There's a subreddit for it and similar routines created by the same guy, too: /r/gzcl
It only requires 3 days/week at the gym and around 1hr per day
When the parent said compound lifts they were referring to lifts that (when you are doing them heavy and correctly) are whole body exercises: Deadlifts, squats, and bench are the three main lifts. Programs will typically mix in some other lifts to round out the program a little like power cleans, overhead press, and bent over rows.
Most beginner strength programs are three days a week, I've found most people do Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but it's flexible as long as you have at least one rest day in between workout days. If you don't mess around and just go to the gym to work you can easily be done in 30-45 mins so under 3 hours a week is very realistic.
You will absolutely feel uncomfortable when you start. Everyone does. Read a lot about form and pay attention to yours (gyms have lots of mirrors, lift near some especially when you're starting out). It's really easy to hurt yourself once the weight increases if you have bad form. Consider getting a good personal trainer to teach you the fundamentals of the lifts.
They have a 'how to post a form check' guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/rules#wiki_2._how_to_p...
Remember to eat well and make sure you get enough protein, otherwise it's hard to follow the program.
* = https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shabu.star...
Also, you need to be doing them on a lifting platform for the end of the lift, when you have to drop the weight all the way to the floor. Not too many gyms (in the UK, at least) seem to have these.
That being said, I'm sure I have bugs in some of the exercises, I try to work them out via. videos and focusing on technique before I put more weight on the bar.
All the gyms I've been to here in Denmark have lifting platforms, squat racks, etc. so that hasn't been a problem for me.
I'm an old school gym guy—squats, deadlifts, bench, pullups. I got curious about kettlebells a couple months ago after seeing how well they seemed to work on people I know who have used them. Now, after buying 3 kettlebells and a home pull up bar, I'm feeling pretty decent about sticking with these for the foreseeable future.
Lifting with them is far more ergonomic than using a barbell. Sure, you can't load as much weight but the payoff is that you are manipulating the weight through a larger range of motion. Pavel Tsatsouline's book was what I went with for the movements and of course there's endless content on YouTube showing the proper form. If I were really going hard, I'd do KBs four times per week and finish with a heavy barbell lift at the gym, but the laziness has taken over and I'd rather work out in my living room than walk to the gym.
Like anything, take it with a grain of salt but I have long been a skeptic of faddish exercise and these have been working great for me.
Poor form can cause long term injuries, soft tissue damage, or even arthritis.
3 sets of 12 reps descending / ascending of:
* frog jumps - plank pushups
* reverse lunge with overhead press - spiderman crawls
* burpees - leg raise sit ups
Eg: do 12 reps of of frog jumps and one rep of pushups, then immediately do 11 reps of frog jumps and 2 reps of pushups, etc down to 1 rep of frog jumps and 12 reps of pushup. NO resting in between. When done, take a two minute rest, then immediately start the next set. The key to this routine is not resting, and maintaining good form. It offers me a great burning sensation when I do it correctly, and I'm done in less than 25 minutes flat.
If you're gonna do it, do it properly.
I think this explains the effect where a guy starts lifting and the pain goes away in a week, although it takes a little while longer than a week to obtain a professional powerlifter physique.
Something to consider is bro-science in lifting, which is rampant. I machine/circuit train lift because the odds of going out with a back injury from freeweight squatting is maybe 10% annually, but the odds of injury on the machines is approximately zero. If your whole point of lifting is becoming a world class athlete then you MUST freeweight and accept you'll spend some time in the ER and hospital due to injury because the machines don't have the capacity; I max out the leg press at 400 while the freeweight guys at the gym do much more. On the other hand if you merely want to be the strongest healthiest guy you know outside of the gym or want to prevent injury or improve lifestyle in general, the machines are more than good enough. Basically freeweights are for people trying to win a competition (and there's nothing wrong with that) whereas the machines are for injury and lifestyle improvement, so pick the right tool for the job. On the topic of bro-science, unless you're putting in lumberjack levels of effort and superman strength, ignore all the supplement and diet advice specific to lifting; I started doing bicep curls with 50 pounds and you don't need to eat 17 raw eggs per day or take 42 pills per day to curl 50 pounds, the exotic stuff is for people performing exotic activities. If you're trying to lose weight, its true that you can't outrun a fork, but weight lifting is an entirely different topic than either weight loss or aerobics, so bro-science for aerobics people or fat people isn't relevant ... although you probably should be eating paleo / low carb regardless of exercise routine.
"a back injury from freeweight squatting is maybe 10% annually, but the odds of injury on the machines is approximately zero"
Got a cite for this? My pure N=1 experience is that I've only ever been injured on machines forcing the body into unnatural movement patterns, while I've been squatting for 10 years with no issues. Sure I only squat a few hundred pounds, not like the 1000+ lb monsters.
Squats actually require a lot of hamstring flexibility to perform correctly, and most people don't have that. The basic compound lifts are generally very technically challenging and can take years to master. If you approach it like a meathead, don't be surprised when you get meathead injuries.
The point about injuries, especially for squatting, is definitely a good one though. Although I would want to ask an expert about it.
This is why pistol squats are worth more than just a body weight * x two-legged squat. This is why yoga is valuable for more than just flexibility.
Isolation of a muscle is all great and can make you look strong, but your body is actually a non-trivial network of muscles distributed across your entire body.
Unless your aim is to lift a big number or look big in a specific way, a gymnasts are a better proxy for balanced strength and they rarely do more than BWEs.
Personally, I do love a good old fashioned barbell squat though...
I'm trying to think of a machine I used today with a "track" where the track would be unavoidable via other exercise or bad. For the leg press I don't want my knee flexing sideways if at all possible but my hips and ankles are movable so kinetically in an engineering force diagram how would my knees "know" that my back was pushing against essentially a chair as opposed to pushing to stand up? If for the sake of argument I accepted that my knees have stabilizing muscles etc, you and I know via cognition and vision that my back was pushing a chair up a track, but from an engineering stress and strain diagram my knees aren't sentient and can't know the difference. The bicep machine and pec fly machine and leg extension machine have a ridiculous array of ball bearings and axles such that I'm only constrained in the circular force direction and the other axes are free over at least a small range, think of like how a car suspension has the wheels continue to turn regardless of the angle the suspension components are hanging at; I could design an inferior machine to do pec fly but my gym thankfully doesn't own one like that...
The row machine is interesting in that via the magic of cables its even less constrained than the oars on my little rowboat where I actually use rowing muscles IRL... The lat pulldown is similar in that if I were to climb a tree I'd be more constrained than I am in the machine...
The leg press is another example of the trig not "working" in that if your lifting form is any good there won't be more than a couple pounds of sideways vector force on your knees if lifting free weights, so putting low/zero side load on the knee in a leg press machine is the same force on the knee. If you run the math on the forces the stabilizing forces are very small with proper free weight form... stand on one leg and hold the other leg out 20 degrees the force on my knee should be mathematically larger than a dead lift freeweight or a leg press.
Furthermore there is infinite ink spilled on the topic of proper form for freeweight lifting, but real world muscle use rarely permits perfect freeweight form, simplifying it to the same problem.
Surely, if machines provided an inferior more dangerous higher risk of injury workout, then people would use free weights to recover from machine injuries, yet that never happens, so inductively I find it highly unlikely.
In regular life I don't want to lift heavy objects. I like the general health benefits and stress reduction and bone density of lifting, I'm not training specifically to deadlift car engine blocks instead of using an engine hoist like a normal person. There are probably people training specifically for vocational purposes where that wouldn't apply, soldiers perhaps.
Tavis Rudd in this Programming by Voice video thought his rock climbing helped prevent issues before he got RSI.
I’ve cataloged lots of solutions:
Any issue with doing them with dumbbells v.s. something slightly longer? Imagining the range of motion I feel like the dumbbells may sway and feel awkward.
I similarly switched to trackball mouse and keyboard without num pad (I was already on vim).
But what helped me more than anything was a keyboard tray that goes below the desk, almost on your lap.
Whenever we move offices at work, it sometimes takes a day or two before the tray is installed and I notice that the discomfort starts coming back quickly.
vim support in IntelliJ is pretty good these days so that's a huge help too. I had to abandon emacs and my claw movements early in life...
Taking up bouldering / rock climbing and doing that once or twice a week has improved my grip strength a lot, with the added bonus that I don't remember having any more RSI pain since I started doing it regularly.
So I definitely agree with the original post that environment makes a huge difference, and with this comment about strength training. And I'll say that rock climbing is awesome for improving your grip strength.
Edit: With that comes the caveat that pro rock climbers are more likely to develop arthritis earlier than the average person.. You have to be careful with how you load different parts of your body, and I'd argue it's easier to injure yourself than e.g. doing weights in the gym, if you're not careful.
Sometimes it's just one lifestyle choice you need to change to improve your health (e.g. posture), but for some people it's more complicated than that. Everyone's physiology is just a little bit different and responds differently to different treatments.
The quality of people you see, and their willingness to look for answers, will vary DRAMATICALLY. There is joke, what do you call the person who finished last in medicine? Doctor.
If no one is finding an answer to your problem, dedicated research yourself is liable to be a LOT more effective than ten minutes with a trained professional who is not that interested or willing to do any real research.
Joint and chronic pain definitely count, as do lots of intestinal issues, unclear-cause headaches, and so on. Maybe you need a surgeon, or else a physical therapist; maybe a nutritionist, or else an allergist; maybe a neurologist, or else a psychiatrist. These sorts of problems seem to require a willingness to try many things, talk to a bunch of different people, and potentially push back on a doctor who's only recommending one path.
https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes
One example is John Ousterhout, the creator of Tcl/Tk, has had RSI for decades:
Personally, I found wrist pain to be of multifactorial origin: too much typing, driving, playing piano, not enough cardio, strength training, and relaxation vs. stress.
But my frustration is that even the 'switchboard' component of PCPs seems to be broken on this topic - across several musculoskeletal issues, I've only ever gotten recommendations to surgeons (who then said "you're not sick enough yet"). PCPs didn't even know what kind of specialist to suggest for finding causes and reducing pain, and the internet wasn't much better.
At risk of saying "what worked for me", talking to a physical therapist was a huge help with each problem - they didn't have cures, but their education was much more relevant to saying "here are some common risk factors and pain reducers you could look into".
And yes - 'multifactorial' seems like the usual answer, so I'm not surprised everyone has a different fix.
- Break program
- Split keyboard
- Pen-mouse
More here: https://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-beat-rsi/
Just stop using emacs, people. It's literally damaging you!
-vim user
I use god-mode but found that capitalizing letters using the shift key was the biggest cause of pain for me. I retrained my left hand to use the ring finger for shift and added a post-command-hook to turn ",x" into "X", and the problem is largely gone. I also make a point to swap _ and - and also ; and : in certain modes (ahem Python) . My right pinky is still too active (RET and punctuation, but I rarely get any pain, even with a tiny laptop keyboard
Good thing being that Emacs is powerful enough to completely change itself without much effort.
I did exactly this but was always too afraid to admit it publicly, because of Emacs 'purism' users.
I love Emacs exactly because of how highly customizable everything is (without other editors bloat) but equally because I can leverage the huge user-base to not spend an infinity amount of time on customizing.
Although I appreciate other people's experience may be different with vi/vim/emacs, in my personal case I don't have to remote into other machines so I can get away with a custom init.el on my machine.
Anyway, on Github I’ve collected several dozen articles and created a table of things people have tried.
https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes
My personal feeling is that if programmers embraced voice input, simply not having to type when issues arise would help. Of course, most programmers will rant about how keyboards are so much more efficient, which they might be until you can’t use one.
Here’s the current state of voice programming:
https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/progra...
Sadly the CPU load and maintaining the setup with ever changing OSes has been too much. Though I do still maintain easier keyboard shortcuts almost religiously. AutoHotKey and Karabinder FTW.
Perhaps dedicated voice hardware can help.
What sort of CPU load are you seeing? I'm able to dictate on battery, peaks averaging ~20% cpu. (Dragon is a different beast, peaking to >80% anytime it's over the noise threshold, so you need a really good mic to get good battery life).
Script here: https://github.com/talonvoice/examples/blob/master/vlc.py
Alternate minimal script:
from talon.voice import Context, Key
ctx = Context('vlc', bundle='org.videolan.vlc')
ctx.keymap({'video (pause | play)': Key('space')})For more detail, I was sleeping in two wrist braces every night and doing stretches and strength exercises for an hour or more a day before the diet changes. Now I don't need any exercises or braces.
When I regress for a day or two it comes back, but not as bad.
Why did you omit wheat? Was it in direct response to RSI?
There is also this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109010
But I wonder if we'd be better off enabling voice input sooner, before we're in serious trouble, and using it sporadically. Mixing voice and keyboard input at need looks like a way to substantially reduce typing while still using a keyboard whenever voice work is too inconvenient.
On the other hand, it's really not much slower with the state of the art, especially when you mix in stuff like eye tracking at a really core level (we're playing stuff like autocompleting based on a symbol you just looked at!). I'm not far enough along with Talon to be pushing the benchmarking side of things heavily yet, but one early test was about 2/3 the code input performance of a 90wpm typist on the same code, with a lot of obvious places to improve. I think good application of continuous recognition, resumable grammars, and really context-specific helper code can push specific workloads way past what a keyboard/mouse can do (which calls back to the goal of impressing people who aren't injured yet).
Then there's the professional app space - e.g. Photoshop, CADD, and video/audio production tools could really benefit from voice workflows (imagine using a pen tablet augmented with voice + eye tracking instead of complex UI).
I'd probably start by asking for audio samples of you saying a couple of sentences and commands in english
Then I'd try them locally against a couple of speech recognition engines
Then talk about potential issues and ways to influence recognition accuracy
Then I can help you try out Talon for both dictation and command input
As an anecdote, I've heard from some of my non-english-native users that they need to avoid certain word sounds in commands (by changing the command trigger words) because their accent doesn't emphasize them enough for good accuracy.
Imagine one day you find an itch on your little pinky on your left foot. You never notice it before. Now spend all day thinking about it. Every day. It will be magnified, it will become unbearable. I think the book teaches you to shift your attention.
... not that playing video games has been good for my career...
Recently I have been struggled with other health issues, and it took me a long time to realize that they may be psychosomatic as well. Once I started applying the same techniques, I saw real, permanent improvement in my symptoms for the first time. It's not an overnight cure, but if you stick with it, the results are just astonishing. Has anyone else in this thread cured non-RSI issues using the Sarno method?
Long ago, I was in a slightly altered state and it occurred to me that I was semi-consciously clenching muscles in my upper back and shoulders in a weird stress response... to the point where I couldn't unclench them easily. I found that trying to 'loosen up' and distract myself eventually gave me more control back, and relieved some of the discomfort.
I find it completely plausible that many of us may be channeling difficult emotions into maladaptive movements without realizing it. Restless leg comes to mind, also.
I was always able to fix it by using the keyboard shorcuts more. Navigating to menus with alt etc.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/raynauds-dise...
It's more a description of symptoms than a description of cause, but being able to put a name on it makes it easier to ask about and Google. Basically, anything that can help treat this might be able to help with related RSI.
1) Use an alt keyboard layout. Use colemac. It's easier to learn than dvorak and decreases finger travel at the keyboard
2) Stop using a mouse. I used a trackball for a while but it has its own issues. I use a cheap wacom bamboo tablet now. It's far and above more ergonomic than any other device I've used as a pointer.
3) Use a kinesis advantage. Blank keycaps for style points.
4) Use your left hand. I use the wacom bamboo tablet with my left hand (I'm right handed.) This has had amazing results for me personally with the wacom because my left wrist does not bent/turn at all - I move entirely from my elbow primarily because I'm not that dextrous with my left hand.
I did them in that order but I'd recommend swapping the keyboard and mouse first, as they have the biggest bang for the buck in terms of ergonomics. The alt keyboard layout is marginal. Left hand was big for me personally.
All of these items take some time and effort, in particular learning another keyboard layout. And the kinesis also has a relatively steep learning curve relative to other keyboards. Don't do it all at once - it's a multi year journey but hey - no more hand pain! I still use a regular tenkeyless mechanical keyboard and mouse at home in the studio, and obviously carry a laptop for work, but my use of these is fairly infrequent relative to the 40+ hours a week at my desk at work.
> 3) Use a kinesis advantage. Blank keycaps for style points.
These keyboards are quite expensive, but totally worth it. My previous employer offered them as one of several keyboard options. I went with it due to some pain, it took maybe 6 weeks to used to the layout. Ended up buying one a few months later when they went on sale (usually 10% off around black Friday), as my pain had gotten dramatically better. The company that makes them is also pretty hacker friendly - they sell spare parts and they've been willing to help people who want to make custom controllers for their keyboards.
I actually hacked a trackpoint (harvested from an old IBM desktop keyboard) into my kinesis and used that for a while, but due to the way the sensor works it really needs a solid mounting to work well which I just couldn't achieve.
I personally have had decent luck with a vertical mouse (anker makes a cheapish one that works fine).
Not the guy you replied to, but I switched to Colemak last year. It took me about 3 weeks to get to a "usable" state, and maybe 2 months to get within 75% of my previous speed with qwerty. My progression was roughly:
0-1 weeks: Can't type anything without looking at the key map. I would switch back to Qwerty if I needed to type something long out (emails mainly).
1-2 weeks: Weird phase. I can't effectively type in either qwerty or Colemak unless I really "focus" on it. It's hard to describe, but this week was terrible for productivity :)
3+ weeks: Forced myself to use Colemak exclusively. During this time I started doing real typing exercises, and turned off autocomplete in my IDE, since I found that was detrimental to learning. I also wrote a ton of documentation for a couple of my projects, which involved a lot of typing.
Before I switched, I would get intermittent pain in my wrist (maybe twice a month), which has since completely disappeared. When I need to type in Qwerty now, it is very uncomfortable, in a way that Colemak never was.
And yeah, I can still touch-type in Qwerty too, but it feels like contorting my hands in knots. I can type it in fine, I just never noticed before how crazy you have to move your hands to do it.
It was incredibly painful to start using it full time but I built good habits from the start as I re-learned touch typing. It's a very valuable experience watching the brain learn a new keyboard layout as an adult.
From there it took me maybe a month or two to be very confident. I then was unable to type in qwerty without looking at the keys for a couple years. Now my brain is pretty happy switching back and forth. It's odd but I find Ive learned things like typing one handed with colemak on keyboards that are qwerty (eg my macbook) and odd things like that so the brain keeps learning to work in a pinch in the edge cases years later.
Colemak is _incremental_ to qwerty so is significantly easier to learn and get started with full time than dvorak for a software engineer.
All the other advice is still good advice -- but sometimes you have a mechanical problem, so dropping conversations with doctors just because their first treatment failed may not be the right move - there are further actions to explore. And if nothing is working, it is worth finding out whether there is a deeper underlying problem to resolve.
How would you describe the pain? All of mine is in the fingers, exclusively. No wrist pain.
We went through the standard steps for this problem - rest, ergonomic changes, a cortisone shot, then physical therapy. Nothing worked, so I consulted a surgeon, who gave me an additional shot with more expertise in exactly where to give it. That actually helped for 6 months, but when I called back after the pain recurred, they said surgery is the last resort, but also the best option in my specific case, as it is a simple fix and almost always works. During the surgery, they found that my tendon sheaths were bisected, leaving less room than normal for movement through the wrist.
As far as the pain, it was very focused on the side of my wrist at the base of my thumb, in particular when moving the hand to the outside of the wrist.
All that being said, the bigger lesson I got from it all is that not all RSI pain is the same problem. Hand specialists know how to tell the difference between all the problems and can give you guidance on which treatment will help. At the same time, general practitioners do not have the same level of knowledge, and may waste your time running you through treatments that won't work. So if you are having problems... ask a hand/wrist specialist for help.
Good for them. Sounds like a particular case, but I guess if you feel uncomfortably cold in your office, you should do something about it.
This last job change was way more dramatic. They gave me a magic keyboard. Those things are a cramped, ergonomic nightmare. My RSI came back within a single day of typing on the damn thing. I had to get rid of the magic mouse for similar reasons too (arching your finger and wrist, like you need to do to tap it, is similarly bad)
Unfortunately they seem to have discontinued it. I had picked up two a few years back for $20 each on Amazon, but now they're going for $100 on Amazon and eBay which makes no sense for a basic wired keyboard. It must be because of scarce supply and high demand.
It's not perfect: the ESC key is a flimsy little knob and I'm a heavy vim user, but you get used to it, and it's still a huge improvement over not having one.
Of course I don't know exactly why it worked, but my guess is that a) it massively increases blood flow into your forearms and hands, and b) it strengthens all the small muscles and tendons in your forearms and hands so much that typing and other movements don't even register as "strain" anymore.
If you start climbing, start slow and easy and build very slowly, especially if you are an athletic person who is used to improving fast and pushing yourself. The tendons in your fingers get stronger much more slowly than you expect.
setxkbmap -option 'caps:escape'
setxkbmap -option 'ctrl:swap_lalt_lctl'
Edit, as another user said, everyone should probably be using sticky keys. On linux I run
xkbset sticky -twokey -latchlock
> For Emacs users, common wisdom is to swap control and caps.
This is terrible advice and it causes so much unnecessary pain.
- The pinkie is the weakest finger.
- Stretching sideways is a terrible movement. Try it several times and compare it to moving a finger up, or curling the thumb. Stretching sideways should be reserved for infrequent actions -- hitting a modifier key is much too frequent for Emacs users.
- You should have modifier keys on BOTH sides of the keyboard. Using Emacs with just one Ctrl key is just... awkward. There are so many common keybindings (like C-x C-c) that are difficult with this scheme. With Ctrl to the left and right of the keyboard, however, I can just curl my right thumb a bit and then press x and c.
If you have RSI, maybe one of your hands is overworked (i.e. you only use Shift with one hand). Big opportunity for improvement there. Unfortunately not all modern keyboards have modifier keys on both sides of the keyboard, so you definitely have to watch out for this when e.g. buying a laptop.
With the key system you suggest, Emacs bindings are even better even than Vi modal editing, in my opinion. Pressing/lifting a thumb is much easier than changing editing modes.
setxkbmap -option 'ctrl:nocaps'
As far as Wayland goes, keyboard layouts are handled by the compositor (window manager), and have to be supported and configured by each compositor. That's probably the main design flaw that has been keeping me away from Wayland.
You know that whole vim vs. emacs debate? Actually, thats really healthy for you. If you don't wanna have sore knuckles every week, use both.
It really helps to switch it up.
In 1984, I was mostly a user of 8-bit style keyboard systems. Had MSX, had British-8bit, had a bit of American..
In the 90's I had a lot of American. I mean, who hasn't had a bit of IBM or Cherry or two, amirightkids?
All through this period, there were periphery effects where I could observe my hands saying, enough is enough. Please do something else for a while so pathways can be repaired.
So, I did it. I've pushed all kinds of switches in response. Turns out, this is good for all kinds of other reasons too (pollygots ftw) and so on.
But every year I think to myself, how well are my hands behaving? And the answer always comes back to, did I upgrade my main machine this year?
(Disclaimer: ready to ditch Apple and go with someone else, unibody..)
I've got a (tenkeyless) wireless mac keyboard, the low profile really works for me. Wouldn't mind if it was a split keyboard though.
I don't find it to be much of an issue in practice, because I use the Advantage 2 along with a CST L-Trac trackball, which sits right beside the keyboard and can be operated with just a couple of fingers. They have a model which can accept external buttons, which is the one I got, so I also have duplicated the LMB and RMB next to the other side of the keyboard. In this way I could theoretically use the cursor with my left pinky and click with the right pinky without taking my hands off the keyboard, although it's not particularly effective (or necessary).
FWIW I am someone who uses mouse-driven interfaces all the time, although I guess emacs more than makes up for it with the amount of keyboard activity it demands.
I know Kinesis has other split keyboards but they don't have mech switches.
This is even with many years of hardcore clicking and "worst case scenario" things when playing massive gaming sessions back in the day.
But, one thing I've always done from the beginning is to make sure my forearms are parallel to the floor. I always make sure my hands are well supported on the keyboard[0], and my elbows are well supported (on a chair's arm rest).
One thing that sucks about a standing desk (something I've been using for 2.5 years) is you lose that elbow support since your forearms tend to dangle.
[0] This doesn't necessarily mean resting them on the home keys. I don't know how to type properly and over the years developed my own crazy system. I'm pretty sure if anyone saw my typing, ergonomic is the last thing they would describe it as.
I'm not a fan of actually supporting elbows, that (for me) would lead me to leaning on them, which leads to 'hanging' and shoulder / neck issues.
I also much prefer having the keyboard / mouse low, but then I just adjust my chair to also match that height so my forearms rest naturally.
Funny enough that's exactly what I used to prop up my monitors too. It's so good because you can fine tune the height by just removing a chunk of sheets.
If you sit up straight, the weight should be pretty evenly distributed. It felt like floating on air.
In the end I guess that's what matters. Try to find a set up that puts absolutely no strain on your forearms, wrists and hands.
[0]: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uuC3UMEaaa-lcTMsh4xMIg8Rbt...
Pressing, Ctrl, Shift, etc. combos strains your hand. With sticky keys you can press key combinations by hitting the keys one after the other, instead of simultaneously.
* Highly skilled physio who did MAT. Most physios did nothing for the problem. But, I found one who had been the physio for the local pro football team. Unlike the others, he didn't use ultrasound.
* Trigger point therapy massage. Far more effective than regular massage. Hard to find a good practitioner
* Handshoe mouse. A lot of my troubles were causes by mousing or trackpads. This mouse has been astonishingly comfortable. I think it forces you to use the shoulder and have good wrist flexion
* Using the keyboard I used while recovering. I tried any number of mechanical and ergo keyboards, but then remembered that in 2011 I had comfortably types a million words while recovering. I checked and found I had used the logitech MK320. I bought it again and have been able to type more. No idea why this cheap rubber dome keyboard has been so good for me
* External monitor raised up. After recovering, I switched to a mac and used laptops. Using it as a laptop was dumb; while recovering I had an external raised up. I did this again and I think the improved neck posture helps.
I was already doing weight lifting, so the "get strong" advice you commonly see in these threads didn't apply. Though I think the problem would have been worse without it.
Also, I find mobile phone use can contribute. I hold mine with my pinky, and this leads to strain. I haven't figured out how to hold them well, because they should be up near eye level to prevent neck strain.
Can anyone tell me how to make lists that doesn't format as a code block? Double spacing seems to be the only way not to have list items all on the same line.
Also due to the form I find I'm forced to keep my wrist in a good position, and basically can't use it to move the mouse. Instead I have to use my shoulder.
Then I dropped wheat from my diet and it went away within a week. I was the true skeptic going in, so I returned to wheat a few times and the pain comes back every time within a day or two.
I tried a bunch of stuff that didn't work. The stuff that did work always made a differece very quickly. Often within a day or two. Becomes startling when a problem is otherwise intractable.
Within three days I couldn't type without pain. The height and volume alone may have done it, but the cold felt like it was bad for my arms.
1. Get ibuprofen for the pain.
2. Cut down on time at the machine. Use the minimum you need.
3. Stop using your phone/tablet so much.
4. Start walking as much as possible. You will not believe how much this helps.
5. Change your mouse. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Vertical-Ergonomic-Optical...
6. Go see a physio for advice on exercises.
7. Swimming for long-term strength and prevention.
It's worth adding that stress can be a significant factor, so if you're stressed you should address that too.
Kinesis Freestyle Edge (never mind the "Gaming" slant): https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/edge/
A big-ball trackball (not the thumb-operated ones): https://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/trackballs
0. If you are in pain, stop immediately.
1. Posture: get an ergonomic assessment at work, follow it. A proper posture should not injure you. While typing your wrist should not be at an angle.
2. Stretching: physical therapy will train you to do it correctly. poor stretching will harm you even more.
3. Wrist braces help preventing injury. Ice and ibuprofen can help managing pain. But pain is useful to understand what is harming you.
4. Get ergonomic hardware. A mechanical keyboard can be softer than a regular one.
Apple was one of the precursors of ergonomic keyboards and now I wonder how anyone can use those keyboards 8h a day.
A short keyboard (no numpad) is preferable too. It prevents having to open your arms for mousing and typing, which is a frequent cause of mousing RSI.
I use a leopold 660m which is a 60% keyboard that has arrow keys tucked close.
Other than that, yes, it's great.
Yes. Paid close to €400 for a Kinesis Advantage 2, to replace the previous model. Hurts the wallet but better than nerve pain.
I mean we live in a market where beginning developers make (and by extension, cost the employer) over $100K.
So he gets a cool keyboard, means 99 other employees are going to demand their cool little expense like the espresso maker or the dog walking area outside, and because its penny wise and pound foolish, the company would rather infuriate hundreds while destroying productivity, than spend 1% of their salary budget making the employees happy and productive.
It would cost me half my monthly salary, if I didn't get taxed. For something that I might not even get used to and have no one to sell it to in the local market.
Before, when using QWERTY on a regular keyboard, I reached a point where I could no longer type at all without pain. Although I code I mostly write prose and messages. After switching I can type on QWERTY without pain as the original injuries healed, but I can feel after several hours how difficult and uncomfortable it is to type on that layout.
If you're at a point where you can no longer type why wouldn't you consider changing the layout of your keyboard? Even if it's to something substandard in many ways it at least ensures you use your hands and arms in different patterns. It's also a nice exercise for the mind.
I had few times wrist pain and it is usually due to mismatch of height of the desk and the chair.
If you have symptoms which are not easily explainable, and especially if they vary, it is worth taking the effort to read his books.
So I got rid off arm rests on my chair and put the keyboard and mouse on a tray and put the tray on my lap. That was the neutral resting position for my arms. And it got rid of my RSI for the most part.
If you've tried other options for your RSI and still can't find respite, check if typing from your lap alleviates pain. You can test this using a laptop. If using your laptop on your lap for long periods feels less stressful as opposed to typing and mousing from your desk, it means the least stressful position for your arms is at the level of your lap.
There are a lot of nice alternatives to this, too.
If you are happy spending >$300 on a keyboard, https://shop.keyboard.io/ is definitely worth looking into.
If you are feeling more frugal, there are all kinds of options. Anything "ortholinear" is an improvement. We don't need typewriter-staggered layouts. Anything that puts modifier keys near the thumbs instead of palms is also helpful.
Here are some great open-source designs:
So you have to figure out why blood flow is bad. And this might be different from person to person.
Some personal experiences:
* Bad posture.
* Stress causing neck muscles to block blood flow.
* Working too long.1) Consider getting a big trackball and learning to use it with your wrong hand,
2) Get a better keyboard,
3) Work slower,
4) Walk as much as you can,
5) Lose weight,
6) Manage stress.
In common with many others, I believe there's an emotional and/or stress context to pain, and you need to fight conditions such as RSI on multiple fronts.
In my estimation, especially on the east coast, most people are more tense than they consciously realize
I enjoyed that you pointed out avoiding caffeine as a way to detense
That's not to say never use your right hand at all - If I was playing some FPS I'd happily switch to using my right hand again but giving it extended periods of rest (by not using the mouse) and hitting tough key combos with my left hand (Cmd + Shift + 4 + Space for a screenshot anyone?) were what made things better for me.
Cold temp, as in the OP, was probably one of the issues. It went away, and didn't reappear since, by using open glove when typing / playing the bass, and doing some hands / wrist stretches before / during work and practice.
It was seriously bad and now I don't even have it.
1. Ergonomical keyboard and vertical mouse
2. QFMLWY instead of QWERTY [1]
3. Massaging forearms with a Lacrosse ball
4. Strength training: climbing or "rolling" a long barbell held behind back.
5. Theraband exercises
(It takes a bit to get the hang of it though)
1. Use a short keyboard (no keypad) so mouse and keyboard can be closer.
2. Move mouse using shoulder rather than elbow.
After switching to the handshoe mouse, I have no mouse pain even if inattentive to posture. (I don't use the scroll wheel though)
It basically forces you to not use your wrist, and to use your shoulder.
I find it's helpful to have actual timers and reminders and it sort of helps me keep pace on how fast the day is going and how much time I have left.
I hurt the ulnar nerve in my left hand in 2013 bicycling. The doctor put me into a brace and put me on some strong muscle relaxants for 2 weeks. I went to work and typed with the brace on under the influence of the drugs. I already had a long history (20+ years of regular weight training) and was really fit. I had previous moments of discomfort over the years from bad keyboards or overly cold office environments and such but nothing serious. This was at a point where I'd been on the computer a lot for 20 years or so.
When I got out of the brace and off the drugs I immediately had full blown RSI in both arms. According to the doctor it looked like I had tendonitis in the flexor muscles.
I went through everything they asked and nothing worked. I could "manage" but was annoyed every day at work. All kinds of keyboards and pointing devices didn't help much. The most helpful thing was using a foam roller to massage the muscles of my forearms. This was not something suggested by the doctors or PT, which was really annoying. The foam roller works better than having a person massage your arms or use the ultrasound treatment on your arms. Most of the physical exercises they prescribed & stretching made things worse!
At some point I discovered drinking black/green tea was causing the muscles in my arms to tighten up. It was causing it throughout my whole body but for some reason that didn't really cause any symptoms in other parts of my body.
When I eliminated the tea the symptoms started going away within a day or two and then my forearms slowly got stronger and stronger over time. I was able to get back to all the exercise/weight training/cycling, etc.. pretty quickly. I had never really stopped the exercise anyway but it always caused inflammation until I got off the tea. Maybe the tea had a circulatory effect on me, who knows.
It was not caffeine. I can drink all the coffee/soda/energy drinks I want without the symptoms returning. I don't drink that much of them but whatever it was, it's not caffeine, it's one of the other compounds in tea, of which there are a lot and of which most are not that well understood.
I'm used to using Browns, which I find to be okay, but I really dislike Blue switches.
I understand that keeping back this information is a rethorical tool to force the reader to read the article to the very end, but I believe it is a dishonest strategy of keeping people reading.