Product Review: Morency Armrest

Update April, 2003

Below is the original text of the review, written in February 2002. A reader noticed I haven't updated it over a year later, so here's the update: the Morency Rest is one of those things that you barely notice as part of your equipment, and when someone asks if it works, you say, "Well, yeh, I guess," but when a co-worker asked to borrow it, I was all-of-a-sudden very stingy. Don't take my MorencyRest away. That's the 'acid test' of ergonomic equipment... will you do without it??? I use one at home and at the office—for over a year now—and I suspect that if I used one for my whole career I might not have needed surgery on my elbow to release an adhesion and free my ulnar nerve. It lets you work more relaxed.

Yes, you want to avoid placing constant pressure on the bottoms of your forearms all day, which any armrest, wristrest, or similar, can lead to, but that's a behavioral problem; once your body reaches the point where it needs help maintaining vitality, you've got to learn to stay in motion, take breaks, get good exercise, stop working compulsively and so on.

I am not compensated by any of the vendors mentioned in this review or others, other than samples of their products.

jb


The folks at morencyrest.com offered me a Morency Arm Rest a while ago to try out. In our book, we generally recommend against resting your arms on a wrist rest or even chair armrests, so I gotta tell you, I was a little biased against such items, not to mention that ergonomic equipment in general is rife with "snake oil" salesmen. But I've been using it at home for about two months now and it's made a noticeable difference in my symptoms.

At the office, my ulnar nerve gets irritated after about an hour of work. I get a distinct pinching sensation—nothing serious by comparison to many RSI sufferers—very consistently after about an hour or two of work, but I'm not getting the same phenomenon now at home. On more careful consideration, this approach makes sense. I've been holding my arms up for 18 years. I probably pinch off every nerve and blood vessel in my arms with the tension it takes.

In fact, it's made me notice something I should have realized years ago: I have long arms, so long I've bought custom shirts a few times. I've probably been lifting my shoulders up all these years to get my forearms up to the keyboard. With an armrest, I can stop doing so. The armrest has made me aware that I'm not even letting my arms relax! I'm waiting to try it out at work. I'll let you know in a few weeks.

Let me offer my usual RSI disclaimers:

  1. If you have serious chronic muscle inflammation or nerve adhesions, you're not ready to judge ergonomic devices, exercise, or even stretching. Something like an armrest might ultimately be terrific for you, but initially it could irritate you to simply rest your arms. Get professional help.
  2. Everyone is different and you won't know if it helps you until you try.
  3. Put their money-back guarantee to the test and find out for yourself.

Another even more radical alternative along the same lines is available at metamorphosis.com.

Good luck, and let us know what you think.