Aside – Keyboards

As a high speed touch typist, I have more than a strong regard for good keyboards. As someone who has dealt with RSI for the last 10+ years, I have an even stronger regard for healthy keyboards.

First, I’ll say from the outset that it’s my non-professional opinion that if you’re suffering from RSI and using a “wavy” keyboard (as pioneered by Microsoft), you need to throw it out. There’s a very important reason for this. The wave style keyboard is designed for hands “at rest” – and when you’re typing, your hands are not at rest. Thus, while the wavy keyboards are supposedly ergonomic, I and many other long term RSI sufferers find they simply exacerbate symptoms.

Kinesis-Ergo Keyboard

For a good 8 years, up until 18 months ago, I used one style of keyboard whenever I was at a desk – the Kinesis-Ergo Contoured keyboard:

This has two very important features for RSI sufferers:

• The halves of the keyboard are separated far enough to encourage your arms into a 90 degree posture at your sides rather than stretching out or in;
• The concave nature of the keys means that your fingers, when you type, stretch outwards/down, which is an entirely natural movement.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the Kinesis keyboard I’d have had to find another industry to work in.

Apple’s new streamlined keyboards

When Apple’s new streamlined keyboards came out, I was still using my Kinesis-Ergo keyboard, and was entirely dismissive of these spartan designs. I was certain the pseudo-chiclet key design would just make for a bad typing experience. If you’ve not seen these, they look like this:

Several weeks after the keyboards came out I was wandering past an Apple reseller’s store and noticed they had the keyboards, so I went into the store to type on the keyboard to affirm my distrust of them.

Imagine my surprise when I found it was quite simply the best keyboard experience I’ve ever had. The killer feature in these keyboards is the miniscule travel associated with hitting each key. Honestly, the typing force required on one of these keyboards is tiny – the only way I can describe it is that if you know the required force difference between trying to type on a manual type writer and a standard keyboard, you have some appreciation of the force difference required between typing on a regular keyboard and these Apple keyboards. It’s not quite the same amount, but it’s still quite a large amount.

I now use the Apple streamlined keyboards exclusively when I’m at a desk. They’re that good.

Physical Treatment

Having been a daily rail commuter for work, I usually saw a chiropractor every 4 weeks (now it’s around every 6); for years now I’ve been getting hand/arm adjustments as well as the regular adjustments (it’s not something a chiropractor typically looks at unless you ask them) – this definitely helped as a periodic treatment.

However, about 3 years ago I was referred to a “neuromuscular massage therapist”, who worked wonders on my RSI. Through some extremely painful sessions, she worked at decalcification in the tissues in my arms, which enabled better blood flow and muscular strength, which literally wiped 8 years of RSI from me in two sessions. Two very painful, but very important sessions. I now go back every year or so for a refresher.

Final thoughts

Obviously different people have different experiences with RSI, but given how much I had to endure while looking for solutions, I wanted to post my experiences in the hopes that it helps others.

I’m not a doctor, or have any physical sciences background – I’m a backup consultant, so don’t think I’m giving medical recommendations, just explaining what happened to work for me.