Workstation Modification: Ergonomics

(Excerpted from the book, "(Amazon) It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: RSI Theory & Therapy for Computer Professionals")

Each person is unique and your workstation should be equally individualized. In this section, we’ll describe how to adjust your workstation precisely for the one person using it, you. The study of making the work environment conducive to human activities and the shape of the human body is called ergonomics. Ergonomic recommendations are often controversial, even though the basis for most of the ideas is usually "common-sensical." The problem is that too many recommendations seek to establish absolute, measurable guidelines, instead of staying focused on the underlying principles. With that warning in mind we present our over-riding goal for all of our ergonomic recommendations:

Our Golden Rule of Ergonomics The objective is to work as much as possible in an unstressed position, with your upper body balanced, with the least muscle tension, and the lowest impact force. Any configuration or device that gets you closer to this goal is "good ergonomics" for you... irrespective of industry guidelines, rules-of-thumb, human factors averages, and so on. When we or anyone else cite specific dimensions or positions, it is just a starting point, based on what seems logical for a mythical, "average" person.

There Is No Perfect Setup When you read anyone’s ergonomic recommendations it’s common to feel that one idea conflicts with another. For instance, we will say move close to the keyboard, and we will tell you not to bend your wrists. But you may find that the closer you move to the keyboard, the more you must bend your wrists! Yes, there are conflicts. One of the reasons we have this RSI problem is that there is no perfect position. Even if you get one of the fanciest ergonomic keyboards available, one that places the keys in a concave, curved alignment immediately at the tips of your fingers, not everyone’s hand is the right size for the keyboard. Moreover, the millions of repetitions mean that such a keyboard can arguably cause a more static position. More on that shortly.

Photos or Observation If you’ve got a serious RSI problem, you really should have someone take some photos or at least watch you while you work. If you are getting rehabilitation, your therapist should perform a job site evaluation. It’s very hard for you to honestly assess your own posture when you work, so someone else’s perspective can be indispensable.

Your mission is to find the happy medium that lets you work with the least muscle tension. To do this, we’ll consider each of the components of your workstation, one-by-one in the following sections.