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Comment by muxxa | Hacker News Reader

My experiences with RSI leave me sceptical on these types of approaches which focus solely on minimizing hand and arm movement. E.g. hunt and peck typists are less prone to small tissue RSI because they make large movements using their stronger forearm muscles.

The injuries I experienced were due to holding tension in the shoulders and back (due to working while tired, altered posture while caffeinated and the self-directed stress of trying to get some work done).

Technical fixes like this might provide relief for a while but I think they miss the core problem, which imo boils down to your body not being relaxed while you work.

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I went through a period where I spent thousands of dollars on ergonomic keyboards and chairs.

I bought the Datahand and used it for a good two weeks. The mouse cursor can only be controlled up/down , left/right with it. With too much graphical work, that cut my use of it short.

Several years later I started a strength training program, and within a few weeks my RSI vanished. At its worst, my arms would be numb when I woke up, I had sustained numbness in one hand for weeks, at one point I couldn't physically hold a mouse more than 15 minutes. It took a quick Google Image search to know I would never do a carpel tunnel release surgery.

After adding up the workout time spent, it was about 4 hours of strength training (no weights or gripping) that ended 5 years of debilitating wrist pain. From what I've been able to tell many years later, it was all from doing pushups -- which likely has everything to do with shoulder and back muscles. That ironic thing was, because the pain was in my wrists and arms, I thought doing pushups would cause too much pain so I had stopped doing them.

Now instead of ergonomics I think of how to be more active while and between working.

Here's a BitTorrentSync id of some exercises that really helped me: BDN7MZPLOUBODZ65VXQFBSUQ6WUJSOVOC

For two more anecdotes, my coworker and I have had similar experiences. My RSI isn't entirely gone, but I had to take a long break from pushups because of an injury. I'm able to start doing them again so I should get to it, because I had a significant reduction in symptoms after only a week or so of pushups.

This site might seem a little spammy, but its methodology for figuring out how many to start with and at what rate to increase the # of pushups was a big help for me. I started at about 3 pushups and even after a long break due to the injury I can do 15, which is saying a lot since I am completely out of shape!

Think you forgot to include the URL?

Wow, sorry! http://hundredpushups.com

As someone currently suffering and having gone down the road of expensive keyboards and changing keyboard layouts -- can I confirm with you the specifics of your strength training program?

Taking frequent breaks, alternating to a standing desk, ergonomic everything has made my awful RSI go away almost completely.

Most important was breaks and not using a laptop keyboard/trackpad while sitting down in a chair, ever, for a long period of time. That causes insta-RSI for me.

I was using WorkRave to prompt me to take breaks. Paradoxically, this made things worse as I was getting more stressed about getting back to getting stuff done during the break. The key is to internalize and accept that you need to take breaks, and to relax during them.

Edit: particularly #14 in computer_desk_stretches.pdf

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