Lately both of my thumbs have started to exhibit some muscley-tendon-y pain. (Frankly, I’m surprised I’ve made it this long without major ergonomic issues! Credit to all the hardware product designers for making tools that have allowed me to pay little attention to ergonomics for the past 30 years…)
I’ve been trying to figure out where the pain is coming from. I identified a few possibilities:
Picking up my children (sometimes I’ll put too much weight on my thumbs when I pick them up under the arms)
Phone use (too much keyboard swiping)
Keyboard use
I ruled out the first two, though I’m sure they contribute, because my thumbs usually don’t hurt when I’m doing those things. I just couldn’t figure out why or how keyboard use was causing me pain now, though. Or at least I couldn’t figure it out until I paid really close attention to my habits this week… that’s when I realized that my thumbs seem to pain when I crunch up my hands to reach the modifier keys.
Drat. Too much holding cmd and opt while doing fancy automation! I blame everyone here for encouraging me. (Just kidding.)
Since I noticed this pattern I have been trying to use other fingers to interact with the mod keys. It works, but it’s awkward, mostly because those fingers are supposed to be the ones hitting the keys-to-be-modified. Hence I’m looking for alternative solutions. On the table are:
More use of my Stream Deck. Maybe I need another one for the office…?
Buying a (very expensive!) Moonlander keyboard and carting it everywhere in the included carrying case.
Changing how I access the most commonly-used automations tied to these modifiers (e.g., opt+tab for Contexts-based window switching and other windows management things)
I thought I’d share my experience and see if anyone else has had similar issues or other ideas.
One of my early wins with Keyboard Maestro was to remap the cut-copy-paste commands to single-finger function keys. (All that copy/pasting was seriously wounding my thumb)
Now I’ve got a similar problem with my bike shifter…but I haven’t found a software fix for that.
This happened to me! Personally, I think a new keyboard is the answer. I know you’re going to hate to hear that wink wink. The one that helped me was the Kinesis. Honestly, it drove me crazy, but it really did help the thumb issue. If you have what I had, it’s essentially mother’s thumb and was probably created by picking up your kids and now won’t heal because of your keyboard. Once it healed, I stopped using the Kinesis and haven’t had any problems. I wish I still had it, I’d ship it to you!
If you go with ZSA, are you going to also get the Navigator?
I’ve actually given this a lot of thought lately, sorry for the wall of text:
Same boat kinda; surprised I haven’t had any more RSI issues than I’ve had so far, thankfully been minimal.
I sometimes forget, I think the biggest factor for me is a sit/standing desk. I think just moving around, and adjusting the angle of my arms more frequently helps a lot. I’ve got an Autonomous. Stasis is the enemy, in my mind—but I’m not a doctor. I’ve been researching floor sitting to standing desks, I like the full range of motion option.
A vertical mouse I think makes a difference too; I think David said on a recent episode he got one. I have the logitech one. But what I noticed specifically is I definitely have more RSI issues when I’m working on a project that requires a lot of clicking and dragging. That’s usually working on some kind of animation-heavy project in After Effects. So I have an on-again-off-again relationship with pen and tablets, like a wacom. I have a Huion right now, but the software is not super reliable, I think i’ll just follow the crowd and get a wacom when this gives out.
I also got a Contour Shuttle, since most of my time is in Premiere or another NLE. If it doesn’t help my joints, it’s at least more fun!
Software wise, I’ve been toying with Homerow. It lets you virtually click on interface items onscreen via keyboard shortcuts. And then if I’d rather try to keep my hands off the keyboard, my latest toy is Kando. It’s a pretty slick, open-source tool that lets you assign gestures to your pointer input device and run shortcuts by a pop-up radial menu. Not a silver bullet, but seems pretty promising so far.
But I think just having the option to control the computer how I want and not be tied to a single input device helps me.
Oh and for reference I’m on a standard numpad apple keyboard…and also curious about the Moonlander.
I recently discovered Sticky Keys which made things better for me. Although my issue is the wrist not the thumb. Makes keyboard shortcuts much more comfy to type. Started a thread about it here.
But ergonomics are only a part of the puzzle and thinking about spending leisure time away from computing devices enjoying the actual analog life and physical activity might help as well.
I use a Moonlander as my primary keyboard, and I really love it. That said, I don’t know that I would want to be transporting it around with me all the time if I were using my computer on the go. It’s as much having to haul around cables as anything else.
Maybe you can get a trade-in and get a good price for your kids, so you can afford the keyboard.
Don’t overlook strength training as a possible solution. I had pretty frustrating RSI pain from my hand to my shoulder and neck (showed up in various places at different times) that went completely away once I started strengthening the proper muscles. If you don’t regularly do some strength work, it’s worth exploring as an option.
I had pain in my left thumb. One joint didn’t have any real cartilage remaining. The took part of my tendon in my wrist to put between the bones. Might not be your issue but mine got pretty painful and it was my primary hand for holding my cell since the mid 90s using nearly 5000 minutes a month. Then the blackberry, then iPhone. Typing on a device adds to it. If it is really bad I would see an orthopedic to rule it out due to the way we use so many devices all of the time.
This is crazy Ryan - the Mainlander is such an expensive solution! I would get the voyager. It is more portable. It does have fewer keys, but I tend to use my thumb less with the Voyager vs the Mainlander. There is less stretch with the Vogaer as the keyboard is not wide as the Mainlander.that said, I find the moorland more comfortable because of the wrist rests. You could get both keyboards.
Thanks, folks, for all the input and advice — though I am of course sad to hear that so many others have (had) similar issues!
I’ll will investigate the warren of rabbitholes you have offered.
I think this / @NiranS’s hypothesis is roughly right: that this is a tendonitis first exacerbated by childcare and now it can’t heal. I need to find some way to rest the joints while also still typing far too many words per day.
I abhor trackballs! ZSA’s version reminds me of HAL 9000. I wonder how this one actually works…
oh wow thank you for the reminder that Kando is a thing! I looked into it a while back but it couldn’t trigger URIs yet, so I didn’t stick with it. But now it can! A whole world of gestural opportunities…
Unfortunately, in this economy, I have to pay people to take my kids, not the other way around
@justindirose is also right that I need to workout more. (I have a prescription for hand physio, so hopefully I’ll get some tips there!)
@NiranS I do admire that you went from “The Moonlander is an expensive solution” to “you should probably get it and the Voyager too.”
I did come up with one solution that hasn’t been offered by others yet: since my mechanical keyboards’ keys can be remapped, I’ve switched by v and b keys to do alt and cmd, respectively, when held. These letters are the natural resting point for my thumbs anyway, so maybe using those instead of scrunching up my whole hand to reach the bottom-left and bottom-right mod rows will help.
Just trying to resist the Moonlander’s siren song…
I think perhaps there’s something wrong with your hand posture while typing. I honestly believe your thumbs should be resting on top of the space bar. And, in a more nitpicking comment hitting a CMD- or OPT-combo should not be done with a single hand, but use one hand for the key and the other hand pinky finger for the modifier key on the opposite side of the keyboard. Yes, I don’t even do this myself, but there’s a reason why this was taught in typing courses 40 years ago. And that’s also the reason why many users remap their CAPS-LOCK to a more frequent modifier key so it’s more easily accesible by your pinky finger.
Also consider that perhaps you notice your pain when you’re typing, but typing is not the cause --I’ve had pain in my thumbs after lifting weights. (Probably bad technique!!!
Anyway, these things are hard to solve but I think you’re on a good starting position.
All good points, and you made me realize that my problem is probably not the modifier keys but the things I’m modifying with them: I regularly use alt+1/2/3 for window management and ctrl+1/2/3 for space switching in the browser.
So between stopping using my thumbs to modify and using my pinky/ring finger instead, and stopping using those particular combinations, I should be on a good track indeed.
Incidentally if I don’t buy a Moonlander I can almost afford one of the new Apple Watches with the money I’m “saving”…
I can’t remember where you live but I searched FB Marketplace for ZSA and saw a Moonlander for $250 and a Ergo for $90 in Seattle. Might be worth a sniff if you’re still on FB.
In my case, it’s not the position of cmd that is the problem as it’s not too far from the centre, but opt and control aren’t so good, particularly if you use a lot of accents and/or navigation or shortcut keys.
My solution is to swap the right hand modifiers round, so that right opt is next to the space bar and right cmd next to the arrow keys. This gives you a ‘strong’ position for both cmd and opt and I’ve found it a very simple and effective improvement.
This is really easy to do in Karabiner Elements – it’s a simple matter of choosing from drop-down lists, with no programming required.
For other improvements, I presume that there is nobody left alive who hasn’t already replaced Caps Lock with Control but beyond that you can really improve the efficiency and comfort of the keyboard by dual-keying, E.g.
Caps Lock (as was) → Escape when tapped, Control when held
Return → Return when tapped, Control when held
Both shift keys together → Caps Lock.
F12 → ‘Hyper’ (cmd-opt-ctl-shift)
This is slightly harder in Karabiner Elements but there are ready-to-run configurations for them on the program website.
If you can reprogram your keyboard, start there and only then look for expensive other keyboards
Using a home row for the modifiers is really nice.
If you want, you can go all the way to a completely custom layout! This also improves ergonomics.
If you don’t want to use your thumbs, your fine with a normal keyboard.
Split/fixed split keyboards allow your arms/wrists to be in a more natural angle (seems not to be your problem) and, tada, use your thumbs more
The thumbs are actually one of the strongest fingers and should be used more than on a regular layout. But with better ergonomics.
The moonlander is in the usual price range of ergonomic keyboards. Before you buy, investigate other options.
I went down the crazy keyboard rabbit hole, if you have questions, feel free to ask.
Try to move your hands as less as possible, if you are constantly moving your hand across the keyboard you are doing something not right, they should be almost fixed in the starting position.
If you use the arrow keys excessively, try to remap them to karabiner’s Super Key on the left
I can no longer recall the details offhand, but I reflashed the firmware on my Massdrop ALT keyboard so that I can use the Via software and remapped it there.
The benefit of this is that the remapping is baked into the keyboard, so it works as expected no matter what it’s plugged into.
