The biggest issue with RSI and other repetive-use injuries (which happens in many professions and even athletics, especially with bad form) is that it happens slowly, then suddenly. It's so slow that it's discomfort. And you ignore that discomfort, especially as your concentration is on a computer monitor with important stuff to worry about being displayed on it. Also, sometimes inflammation happens later (later that night, later that week, etc.).
Start now to reduce your RSI (and RSI isn't your only problem, more on that below):
Get an external keyboard either that has an ergonomic design is is comfortable for you, and a mouse too. A Mac keyboard will be nightmare, don't use it. A Mac 'Magic Mouse' or trackpad will cause damage. It's not made for serious long-term work (there might be a lawsuit one day).
Pro tip: this may sound crazy, but get two mice, one left, one right. Change often. Learn to use the lefty even if you're right-handed, or vice-versa. You'll be surprised at how quickly you get used to it (and you'll laugh when someone tries to show you something on your workstation).
Get a desk that moves up and down. Spend some time standing, some time sitting. Again, change often.
Next, other than RSI is your neck and back. As your rhomboids get stretched and weak from forward rotation of the shoulders, the rear neck muscles get stretched and weak, the serratus goes unused, the chest and front-neck muscles get short and tight... You arch your head forward which causes your head (which already weighs about 8 pounds) to exert a lot more than 8 pounds of force on those muscle groups. And you also look at your phone all day, which you hold down below you. Well you're in for a world of nightmares and headaches that'll make the RSI a distraction by comparison.
Start early to avoid these things, before it becomes too late.
Sincerely,
A guy with some greying and screwed up wrists/hands and neck.
On the topic of mac keyboards and mice, I've never had any uncomfortableness or pain at work, until I started a job where I was given your standard Apple combo of peripherals.
Suddenly, pain everywhere. The tips of my fingers were burning after every keystroke, some of the muscles/tendons in my right wrist felt like they were about to snap after using the mouse for a few hours.
How are these products still on the market? Two weeks in I bought my own mouse and keyboard and haven't had a single bit of pain since.
I used to get blinding pain in my right shoulder and neck and thought I might have to change careers because it kept getting worse and worse. Tried all kinds of stretching and stuff, some helped, but nothing took the pain completely away.
I was in so much pain one day I couldn't use the mouse with my right hand, and began using it with my left hand. The pain gradually went away and I've never had problems since. I think I had a bad habit of some kind when mousing with my right hand I never developed when using my left. Now almost exclusively mouse left handed.
That said, physical exercise, especially hiking and yoga, have helped my neck, back, arm, leg stiffness & pain, etc. considerably. It's as necessary as brushing teeth for me to feel physically ok to be able to keep working in an office.
For me it's weightlifting, specifically strength training (not bodybuilding) which includes mobility exercises and certain types of exercises that strengthen the muscles that are underworked when sitting for long periods. On example is the serratus anterior. Having a serratus that doesn't work properly leads to numerous shoulder-related problems and back pain. It's all sort of connected.
Stretching is only half the battle. One must stretch the correct muscles (the ones that are too tight, like the pecs and scalenes) and strengthen the ones that are loose and weak (like the rhomboids, serratus and others).
If pursuing weightlifting, which I highly highly recommend, I recommend a real trainer (not most half-baked ones you see in gyms), and spending a lot of time specifically nerding out on exercise physiology, even physical therapy. There are some very good YouTube channels - one of my favorite is Calisthenics Movement.
One simply cannot work in an office or at a computer workstation and expect not to have the body pains of a coal miner by the time you hit your 40's without balancing out muscular strength and joint mobility that you lose by doing this.
Much of strength training, a lot of people are surprised to know, involve neurological connections created simply using muscles in movement patterns that are new. It's very similar to the way you learn proprioception (standing on a skateboard, surfboard, or a subway car without holding onto anything). In the same way, muscles get stronger simply because more fibers are recruited, due to repetitive motions. In the early stages, this is much and perhaps most of the 'gains' in strength.
It's getting late and I've fallen into a rabbit hole. In short, do weight training or SOME sort of mobility work (yoga, pilates, whatever) if you work at a computer for a living. These random HN messages can save you thousands of dollars of future medical bills / PT bills and incalculable discomfort.
Very interesting comment, just wanted to thank you for it.
I've been meaning to get into calisthenics and have had to push it due to other responsibilities.
One of the problems is that we are all very good at finding excuses. Exercising, hover, even if it's a bit here and there during the day must not take a big chunk of your time. When I managed to stick to my schedule in the past I actually started to enjoy the "grind" the challenge of lasting longer, improving form and so on.
Yup suddenly you can't walk and they find your spine has decomposed and you're facing major spinal surgery and partial or full disability. That happened to a friend of mine a major retail manager for 10 years then her back literally gave out and she had to have steel implants then was on opiates for 7 years coping with the chronic pain.
I began to get problems in my right wrist from too much mousing (and probably using wrong mice for too long). I started switching between right and left mouse usage, and not only did it reduce the pain in the right side, but I found I adapted to left mousing fairly quickly and easily.
As a 25yo and someone dealing with RSI, I am terrified. What do you recommend for dealing with neck and the back?
Currently, have switched out my mouse for a trackball in the right hand and a trackpad in the left (though occasionally). Next up is the keyboard and chair.
Learn proper posture. This is hard and takes time. It requires persistence and patience. I'm no expert and it's too long to go into even what I know which is not much, but at the very least your posture should be one where you head rests above your shoulders and not in front, your shoulders aren't rounded forward and your elbows are at a 90-degree angle.
The body adapts to whatever you do. If you crawl around all day long on all fours scratching at rocks, your body will adapt to that, too. Adaptations have a price.
The height of your chair and the desk are critical here. [1] I have a desk that I can adjust between standing and normal, and I switch between the two when I can. That can be expensive, though.
I started to make a list of muscular issues (interior shoulder rotation, pelvic tilt) but I realized that first, I'm not qualified to provide the top problems that everyone faces, and second, I'm not really sure which resources to best learn from. Instead, I suggest people spend some time searching in YouTube (or the web) for 'computer posture problems' or 'shoulder pain computer' or 'neck pain text neck' and looking at the Physical Therapy links, sometimes which have a lot of information.
At a high level what works for ME is to 'switch it up.' Use left mouse and right mouse. Stand and sit. I never use a laptop, but at my age I've reached the point that my body punishes me viciously if I sit hunched over for even a couple of hours of time or angle my shoulder, neck or right forearm too long in one bad position.
Body awareness is important and it's hard to convey what that really means - I learned that from a PT and from weight training. It's not something you can read and gain.
But you can be aware of shitty posture when you're using your phone by looking down at it - a HUGE cause of neck pain. At first glance this site isn't bad for a starting point.[2].
The biggest issue with RSI and other repetive-use injuries (which happens in many professions and even athletics, especially with bad form) is that it happens slowly, then suddenly. It's so slow that it's discomfort. And you ignore that discomfort, especially as your concentration is on a computer monitor with important stuff to worry about being displayed on it. Also, sometimes inflammation happens later (later that night, later that week, etc.).
Start now to reduce your RSI (and RSI isn't your only problem, more on that below):
Get an external keyboard either that has an ergonomic design is is comfortable for you, and a mouse too. A Mac keyboard will be nightmare, don't use it. A Mac 'Magic Mouse' or trackpad will cause damage. It's not made for serious long-term work (there might be a lawsuit one day).
Pro tip: this may sound crazy, but get two mice, one left, one right. Change often. Learn to use the lefty even if you're right-handed, or vice-versa. You'll be surprised at how quickly you get used to it (and you'll laugh when someone tries to show you something on your workstation).
Get a desk that moves up and down. Spend some time standing, some time sitting. Again, change often.
Next, other than RSI is your neck and back. As your rhomboids get stretched and weak from forward rotation of the shoulders, the rear neck muscles get stretched and weak, the serratus goes unused, the chest and front-neck muscles get short and tight... You arch your head forward which causes your head (which already weighs about 8 pounds) to exert a lot more than 8 pounds of force on those muscle groups. And you also look at your phone all day, which you hold down below you. Well you're in for a world of nightmares and headaches that'll make the RSI a distraction by comparison.
Start early to avoid these things, before it becomes too late.
Sincerely,
A guy with some greying and screwed up wrists/hands and neck.