I approach all computer usage as if it's inherently harmful to my body, and I must minimize that harm if I expect to work with them the rest of my life. I have had excellent results avoiding repetitive strain from the following two products:
I have no relationship, commercial or otherwise, with either vendor. Just worked well for me, as a professional software engineer. I highly recommend them. Both are designed to shift common movements away from smaller muscles toward larger muscles. Where a regular mouse relies on the small muscles of your wrist, the 3M mouse shifts that movement to the larger muscles of your arm. Kinesis moves the most common keys (space, enter, delete, modifiers) to one's (stronger) thumbs, and places keys to avoid the "stretch" of one's hand common with key combinations like ctrl+shift+T.
I should also mention that I use a standing desk. I think that's an important benefit to non-harmful mouse & keyboard posture. My experience from working while sitting in chairs is that your body tends to lean from side to side, extend one's arms to a degree that will cause repetitive strain, or put weight on the wrong places (like armrests). I have had an easier time adopting correct (least harmful, according to modern ergonomics research) posture while standing.
That posture is: let your arms fall limp to your sides. Now, bending at the elbow (and without moving your elbow), raise your arms in front of you to be parallel with the ground. That's where your keyboard should be. Your mouse should be in reach by rotating your arm, again without moving the elbow. This is the best posture for both chairs and standing (according to the ergonomics expert paid by my company to examine my working space -- I find this to be true in practice). As you can see, it is difficult to achieve this posture in a chair. The height of your desk is probably wrong, and you probably need a keyboard tray. It's more easily achieved with a standing setup.
I have had virtually no RSI issues since switching to these two products and a standing desk about 1.5 years ago. Both devices are fairly different from a normal input, and took a long time to learn to use effectively. The 3M mouse trades away accuracy, but with experience you can get almost as good as a normal mouse for regular desktop applications. I still use a regular mouse and keyboard for PC gaming, however.
Hope this is helpful to other intensive computer-users out there! Give standing a try -- your health will probably benefit.
It's anecdotal, and maybe it's just me, but I've been a computer junkie, at work and at home for a good 20 years, i touch-type, somewhere in the top 5%, my posture sucks (other than where my hands sit relative to the keyboard) and I've had no RSI related issues that I can recall, ever.
That's a mix of apple keyboards, buckling spring keyboards, and barely tolerable dell keyboards. (There's a few along the way I threw out because they were too mushy... but other than that)
Perhaps it's something I do without intention - small breaks due to short attention span or somthing...... but not everyone gets injuries.
You might want to check out an Apple 'Magic Trackpad' (there are Windows drivers as I think you're on a PC).
I've previously used the 3M mouse you refer to as well as all manner of trackballs, larger mice, etc and nothing has done more to alleviate my mouse hand issues than the Magic Trackpad.
I think this is mostly because it removes the need to clench your hand around anything and it can be much more relaxed, yet you still have very fine control (I regularly use it with Photoshop).
My biggest RSI issue has been mouse usage. I'm right handed, but switching to mousing left handed has been a huge help. Plus, since I'm more awkward mousing left handed, it's helped me become more keyboard-centric, and thus more productive.
3M Ergo Mouse: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ergonomics/home/...
Kinesis Keyboard: http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/
I have no relationship, commercial or otherwise, with either vendor. Just worked well for me, as a professional software engineer. I highly recommend them. Both are designed to shift common movements away from smaller muscles toward larger muscles. Where a regular mouse relies on the small muscles of your wrist, the 3M mouse shifts that movement to the larger muscles of your arm. Kinesis moves the most common keys (space, enter, delete, modifiers) to one's (stronger) thumbs, and places keys to avoid the "stretch" of one's hand common with key combinations like ctrl+shift+T.
I should also mention that I use a standing desk. I think that's an important benefit to non-harmful mouse & keyboard posture. My experience from working while sitting in chairs is that your body tends to lean from side to side, extend one's arms to a degree that will cause repetitive strain, or put weight on the wrong places (like armrests). I have had an easier time adopting correct (least harmful, according to modern ergonomics research) posture while standing.
That posture is: let your arms fall limp to your sides. Now, bending at the elbow (and without moving your elbow), raise your arms in front of you to be parallel with the ground. That's where your keyboard should be. Your mouse should be in reach by rotating your arm, again without moving the elbow. This is the best posture for both chairs and standing (according to the ergonomics expert paid by my company to examine my working space -- I find this to be true in practice). As you can see, it is difficult to achieve this posture in a chair. The height of your desk is probably wrong, and you probably need a keyboard tray. It's more easily achieved with a standing setup.
I have had virtually no RSI issues since switching to these two products and a standing desk about 1.5 years ago. Both devices are fairly different from a normal input, and took a long time to learn to use effectively. The 3M mouse trades away accuracy, but with experience you can get almost as good as a normal mouse for regular desktop applications. I still use a regular mouse and keyboard for PC gaming, however.
Hope this is helpful to other intensive computer-users out there! Give standing a try -- your health will probably benefit.