Ergonomic work station

Step 4 Position your arms

Position your keyboard and mouse such that your forearms are horizontal and your upper arms vertical. The weight of your hands and arms should be supported by your shoulder muscles and not resting on any surface of the keyboard while typing. Your hands should be floating above the keyboard surface. Try to achieve the same position when mousing. Resting your hands or wrists on a "wrist rest" and then asking your tendons to do fine motor control by typing is bad news. When resting, you can use the wrist rest or place your hands in your lap.

To dial in the proper height, I use under-desk keyboard drawers such as the Kensington 60044 and 3M AKT200SL. On both of these models, I've removed the gel-filled wrist rests so that my keyboard fits properly. An important feature is that the mouse platform is independent of the keyboard platform. It is unlikely that your keyboard and mouse will be perfectly positioned for you at the same level or angle. I prefer the Kensington because it is continuously adjustable while the 3M has detents.

After taking breaks, I consider arm position the most important thing. When I'm forced to use a laptop, I put the computer in my lap and make sure not to rest my arms on it while typing.

Comments

[42rocky]

Your standing station is well positioned. Are you using a joystick? I use a touchpad as I tend to give mice the deathgrip.

[ewilhelm]

It's the 3M ergonomic mouse. It looks like a joystick, but slides around like a normal mouse.