The point isn't to exaggerate that and be strict with it, but it is to limit strain. Even when typing at a desk, I keep the heels of my hands in the air.
Another big one: Use the mouse from your shoulder/elbow, not your wrist. Keep the wrist stabilized.
Same with pencils, pens, and other drawing utensils. Drawing and writing from your elbow makes all the difference and suddenly you can keep going forever. And your lines look cleaner.
It's also generally accepted that people who "aim" with their wrist tend to need to warm up and take breaks more as it is more straining than using the arm.
It seems to concur with the conventional wisdom on art, piano and typing.
Does this truly work?
I remember stumbling on a page that advocated using shoulder and elbow movements to control drawing utensils, for the reasons you describe. I recall it looking pretty sketchy, "one weird trick" type, but I figured what the hell, it's cheap to try and my handwriting sucks. So I tried and tried, for many hours (EDIT: [0]), and observed that it's not only much more tiring than "normal" way of drawing/writing, it's also extremely imprecise. Sure, I can sort of draw a straighter line this way, but I can't control where it goes or stops with enough precision. And everything has to be bigger, because again, precision for normal-scale letter writing just isn't there.
Or maybe my body is just broken?
(Also tried this with a mouse, with the same results - everything takes too long, and keeping the arm unsupported is tiring.)
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[0] - I dug out my old notes; it was exactly 8.5 hours of focused, deliberate practice of drawing letters using arm and forearm for control, over the span of a month, on top of any writing activity I'd otherwise be doing. I may also have spent additional 1.5 hours on the aforementioned practice, but the notes aren't sure if that really happened (I tracked it in two systems, there was an entry missing in one).
As already pointed out, that's a very low amount of practice to change the technique. For piano, when learning forearm rotation, the point when it became much, much more comfortable to me than my previous way of playing was after roughly two months of practice, 10-12 hours a week. That's just my experience, but when I asked my teacher about not feeling improvements around the one month mark (40 hours in), he said that everything is progressing at an expected rate.
But, I'm curious: how do you place your mouse on the desk?
To me, there's one big difference between the paper and the mouse: The former sits in front of you, while the latter sits to the side.
I find it uncomfortable to move the mouse too much to the side, even though I use a fairly compact keyboard (MS Sculpt).
I've spent some time a few months ago trying to optimise my mouse situation. In the end, I went with a "gaming" mouse [0] for the high resolution and (relatively) low weight so that I can move it around with just my fingers. However, I'm not a very heavy mouse user, so maybe this helps rest the fingers.
I've also tried a vertical mouse, but the issue with moving the arm too much to the side was present, too.
What also worked well for me is a thumb operated trackball (I use a Logitech MX Ergo).
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[0] For the curious it's a Logitech G703. It was the best compromise I've found looking for a wide and lightweight mouse. Wireless is a nice bonus, it was barely more expensive than the G403 which is otherwise identical.
I don’t have any problem moving my stylus side to side.
When I’m working at my desk sometimes I end up shoving both keyboard and tablet to the left a bit, so the tablet is more in front of me. It’s not right in the middle like a piece of paper would be if I was hunching over a drawing board, though, it’s still distinctly to one side.
When I’m out and about with the laptop I tend to align myself more with the screen, so the tablet is distinctly off to the side. Never been a problem.
Out of interest, and assuming you use a tablet with extra buttons, how do you use them? Or do you disable them like virtually every other tablet user I've ever met :)
And yeah pressing too hard on the pen will fuck you right up :)
(so will holding it too tight, if an invisible person couldn't easily pluck your pen out of your fingers, you're holding it too hard)
In my case, I use the keyboard much more than the mouse.
If I try to go back and forth a lot then I'm gonna either be constantly putting the stylus in and out of the holder, or typing with it between the fingers of my right hand, neither of which is much fun.
I had a mouse once that was shaped like a joystick, so your hand was 'side-on' instead of face down. It FORCES you to use your whole arm, basically.
I'm hoping that that it's just that I'm using different muscles, and I need to get used to it. But I'm also becoming increasingly prepared to face the possibility that this keyboard is harder on my hands, because it takes work away from my elbows and shoulders, and gives it to my wrists and fingers.
I find that my Mitosis, which has tons of thumb selection, really alleviates the load on my fingers because the chords only ever involve two digits per hand at the very most.
Also I use Dvorak so my fingers move exceedingly little compared to QWERTY; when I first tried to learn to touch-type QWERTY the "right way" with leaving my hands on the home row, my wrists started hurting so I got angry and switched to Dvorak.
Using QWERTY but leaving your hands stationary is going to require your fingers to be doing a ton of reaching and increase the strain.
It's a very nice keyboard, and scratches my itch for trying out a compact, minimalist, hackable keyboard without going to something that looks like it would be utterly wrist-destroying like the Planck.
I also do find it to be more comfortable than a standard keyboard, but, given the nature of my comfort issues, I think I would find that to be the case for any split keyboard. I don't find it to be more comfortable than my more standard split keyboard, but my more standard split keyboard is a (relatively) large beast that dominates my desk.
Unfortunately, even in the piano community, this knowledge is not that widespread. Really common to see repetitive motion injuries from very finger heavy technique.
I’ve always been shocked by “wrist rests” because they encourage compression and an offset in the orientation of the carpal tunnel. Seems like the best “wrist rest”, if you need one at all, would be a small bed of nails.
Note: I’m male. The carpal tunnels of women narrow during pregnancy and don’t return to the pre-pregnancy internal diameter. As with many conditions specific to women (despite being the majority of hipumanity) this does not appear to have been studied much less explained. An example of why this may be true for me but not for everyone.
Also: pianists are not immune to rsi; while there are sadly many famous professional examples, programmers may also consider Bernie Greenberg.
Moving beyond the kbd: I noticed that my gf’s kids (in Palo Alto schools), were never taught how to use a pencil or pen and suffer fatigue and cramp, while my kid (german education) was thought how to hold and operate pens from grade 1 and though he by now types of course, still has no problem writing for long periods. In Palo Alto all the kids learned was how to make the shapes.
I've had various forms of RSI off and on for many years. For about the last 5 years it's been under control since I started doing the following: I use a Kenisis Freestyle 2, spread apart, rest my elbows splayed out wide on my arm rests, and rest my wrists on the wrist pads. (Seat height adjusted lowish such that wrists are straight.) Basically, I'm not activating any muscles to keep my hands/wrists/arms in the air.
If I try to adopt a more conventional posture[1], with my elbows by my side and forearms/wrists floating in the air, the muscles in my shoulders & upper arms will become highly inflamed, and wrist pain will typically follow.
That said, one thing I do that's in accord with your advice is that to reach the top/bottom rows, I push/pull my arms forward/back a bit. My elbow pads have a bit of give to make that pretty easy. So I keep my fingers curved nicely and minimize finger motion and especially extension at all costs.
I'm also a pianist, and understand where you're coming from, but if I adopt a pianist's posture at the computer, I'll be in pain within minutes. It's possible that no ergonomic setup is right for everybody. My recommendation to anyone with RSI is to listen to the (often conflicting) advice, but keep experimenting in order to find what's right for you.
[1] For example: http://ergonomictrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/proper...
P.S. The keyboard I switched to was designed and built by myself [1]. It is a fantastic first project for someone new to electronics (e.g. me).
I feel like changing to a low-profile keyboard also reduces the angle at your wrist which ought to have a same impact as keeping your hands in the air
But aside from that, I always thought it a very ergonomic layout.
But positioning on a table must be a bad idea - gloves that let you place your hands in your lap or by your side would be much less strain.