Ergonomics

[da]

I just got an ergonomic assessment of my office. It was useful, for helping me track what's causing my shoulder to hurt recently. I knew it was mouse-related, since it hurts precisely when I use the mouse. It turns out I'm holding up my arm too much. Way too much. I should be resting it on the arm-rests. All right then.

I need to investigate:

• a footrest. The assessor said when I'm not using my keyboard or mouse, I might want to be tipping my chair slightly back (something about blood-flow in the back being increased). She recommended putting my feet up. I like putting my feet up.
  
• I still need a windows program that will simply go 'ding' every 20 minutes- to remind me to take a break. Options: many.
  
• a split keyboard without a keypad? She doesn't know of any. I'm going to let this one go, it's only to make my mouse closer at hand and I don't really need it.
  
• I need to ask the kinesiology gym people about two exercises which may be OK for my shoulder, since I've been skipping the arm-lifting exercises at the gym. "prone fly" and "shoulder retraction".
  

20 minutes very well spent.

Comments

[darkmagess.livejournal.com]

I know it's not a traditional split keyboard, but you might consider getting a Typematrix. It feels like a laptop keyboard and has no numpad, so you could move the mouse closer. I found it fairly easy to adapt to.

www.typematrix.com

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I think my wrists might complain about those, because I need the split keyboard. If I were going to go something like that (very compact) route, I'd probably try one of these half-keyboards.

(I was going to use one of those with my mac laptop, but it turns out the mac's keyboard is spaced out enough, and I don't spend 8h a day typing on it, so it's OK).