As a long time typist, everything changed when I started floating my hands. A keyboard that optimizes for less wrist flicker helped too. Important keys in the middle instead of the side.

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.

Not directly related, and hardly scientific , but the general consensus technique for high level FPS video games is to use arm rather than wrist, with an extremely low sensitivity, as this is more precise and consistent than flicking around with your wrist.

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.

> Drawing and writing from your elbow makes all the difference and suddenly you can keep going forever. And your lines look cleaner.

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.)

--

[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).

8.5 hours is not many hours for what is essentially a major technique change. It could be that you were just rushing to a conclusion.

> it was exactly 8.5 hours of focused, deliberate practice

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.

This is interesting to me, especially since I've reached more or less the same conclusion by myself (don't play any instrument nor draw, though).

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 am an artist and my drawing tablet is on the right side of my keyboard, where most people would put a mouse. And yes I do generally draw from the shoulder, not the wrist - that got drilled into me by the elder artists at my first real animation job.

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.

My first brush with RSI was drawing with my tablet too far to the right hand side, and pressing too hard. Nowadays it's just improper placement and having to crane over the tablet (with my left hand) to the keyboard shortcuts.

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 :)

I disable them. Except for the scroll wheel, which I keep set to "mouse scroll wheel" for really stupid webpages that refuse to show a scrollbar because they assume everyone is on touch devices or has a scroll wheel mouse.

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)

Do you move your hand often back and forth between the tablet and keyboard? I could see positioning myself such that moving the mouse from the shoulder would be OK, but then the keyboard would end up in an awkward position for my right arm.

In my case, I use the keyboard much more than the mouse.

The right hand pretty much stays on the tablet when I'm drawing. Left hovers over the keyboard hitting shortcuts, except for ones waaaaay over on the right side.

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 learned this while learning drawing techniques as a kid. Drawing a circle from the shoulder and elbow, for example, will look much smoother and be much easier to accomplish with just a little practice. Any sweeping motions will appear more sweeping. Practicing shoulder and elbow mobility is a great asset to hand control for all kinds of things. It isn’t always intuitive, perhaps because we learn to write, type, and draw on such small surfaces and tools.

> Another big one: Use the mouse from your shoulder/elbow, not your wrist. Keep the wrist stabilized.

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 recently bought an ultra-minimalist ergo keyboard that is designed to minimize hand movement, and that seems to be how it is working out for me, too. Keeping my hands in one place all the time is actually more tiring, and all the extra chording I have to do on a keyboard with so few keys is increasing the number of weird positions I put my hands into.

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.

Which keyboard is that?

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.

Not GP, but I've got the Keyboardio Atreus. And I've even modified that to have ctrl, shift, alt etc on the home row. So keeping 'A' depressed triggers Shift, for instance, but a quick tap is just A. Combined with a Programmer's Dvorak layout. Home row ftw!

Atreus here too.

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.

Was about to type the same thing, am also pianist. Using small muscles to do repetitive things is exactly how you get RSI. Don't do stuff with small muscles that you can do with large ones.

Unfortunately, even in the piano community, this knowledge is not that widespread. Really common to see repetitive motion injuries from very finger heavy technique.

This sort of thing is true for a lot of instruments. For guitar, a lot of players get into the bad habit of pinching the neck with their fingers and thumb, and moving their wrist when they strum. This can lead to injury at worst, but more common is a cramp or complaining about barre chords. You should use your elbow and a steady, fixed wrist to pull your fingers against the frets with just enough pressure to avoid buzzing, the thumb shouldn't be applying pressure at all, and you should be strumming from the elbow.

As a 12 year old I sometimes played scales with pennies on my hands (not by my choice!) and it sure has paid dividends. I’ve been a Emacs user since the 70s and never had a tiny bit of rsi despite mostly using all sorts of physical non-“ergonomic” environments.

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.

My somewhat countervailing anecdote:

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...

Keeping palms in the air has alleviated my wrist and saddle joint pain as well. What helped immensely to build the habit was to switch to a low-profile keyboard so there is nowhere to rest my wrists.

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).

[1]: https://github.com/tadfisher/nyx-kb

> What helped immensely to build the habit was to switch to a low-profile keyboard so there is nowhere to rest my wrists.

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

Well, it doesn't help that the piano is one of the most unergonomic instruments in common use. I don't know which is worse, the piano or the guitar. Guitar chord shapes get really gnarly sometimes, but at least there is some effort to switch neck widths to fit individual hand sizes. Pianos have only one keyboard size!

I'd argue the tuning of the guitar makes it remarkably ergonomic and flexible. Guitar players take it for granted how you can play the same chord all up and down the neck. If a shape is clumsy for you, there are many others you can try to get the same chord, but I think the shapes in general are designed pretty well for the hand once you develop your finger muscles and flexibility. There is a lot of logic baked into the guitar's fretboard layout.

I agree the one-size is bad, especially since it apparently is too big for a majority of humans.

But aside from that, I always thought it a very ergonomic layout.

Isn't the difference that with a piano you have to move your finger or hand perhaps 5-10mm to depress the key. A touch sensitive keyboard could be activated from a mm or less of movement.

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.

Also true for table tennis

I'm a double bassist, 40 years with no (physical) injuries. ;-) String players are taught similar principles despite the totally different ergonomics of our instruments.