OT: Dealing with Carpel Tunnel and editing in FCP

[Walter Biscardi]

Wacom Tablet. I’ve had multiple people thank me for suggesting this as it completely removes all the “clicking” functions with your hands.

One producer had carpel so bad he could not edit at all, but he was able to simply put the pen into the brace / glove he has to wear and get back working again. Been using a tablet since 1996 and have never had any issues with my wrists.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Mark Maness]

Sounds nice, but it can’t replace all of the functions of a keyboard for details such as logging media. While editing… keyboard shortcuts aren’t a problem for me, its the logging that’s doing the most damage to my wrists.

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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Bob Cole]

[Wayne Carey] “its the logging that’s doing the most damage to my wrists.”

Brain spasm report: When I read this phrase, I thought about what a lumberjack would say about us editors if he could hear us complain about the physical demands of “logging.”

I’m not minimizing it, either, Wayne — it’s probably as hard on our bodies to adjust to being adjuncts to computers as it is to fell trees.

Walter, what kind of Wacom do you use? And, have you checked out their monitor/tablet?

Bob c

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bob Cole] “Walter, what kind of Wacom do you use? And, have you checked out their monitor/tablet? “

Intuos 3 and no I have not checked out the monitor/tablet because it’s too expensive and I can easily see where my neck would start to hurt looking down all the time at it instead of straight ahead at the monitors we use now.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Steven Gonzales]

A regular yoga practice is amazingly helpful. It’s not just your wrists, it’s everything connected to them, especially your upper trapezius muscles and shoulder blades.

I also like this mouse, though it takes getting used to:

https://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ergonomics/home/products/ergonomicmouse/

[Rich Rubasch]

I have found that desk height is the most important thing for proper ergonomics. Desk too high, wrist is at too steep an angle and the wrist will fatigue. Desk too low same issue. Once I worked two days on a desk that the mouse was too high and my wrist was killing me. Back at the office I noticed that my wrist was fine, and that the desk height was a little lower. Also the right chair is a factor. And monitor height.

I would say if you’re not ditching your mouse, work with desk height (those slide out keyboard drawers can solve it) your chair and your monitor height.

I used a table too in the old days of the dual 4 x 3 CRT monitors for many years, but now with the widescreen monitors I find I have too much width to easily navigate the cursor across that span with a tablet. Tried it twice and even have one of the widescreen tablets. No go.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Martti Ekstrand]

Weight resistance training at the gym – 3 times a week. Having some strength in arms and upper body really helps. I do notice when I skip my training for some time that tension pains increase when working at the computer. Also I have stuff I need frequently not within reach from my chair so I have to get up regularly to get them. A practical solution to force breaks from the computer during the workday. Good for the back too.

Then just as Walter Biscardi I use a Wacom. It’s positioned in front of the keyboard and I have the front end of the keyboard on the Wacom so keyboard leans back slightly which together with keeping the chair pretty low put my hands in a straighter position. The mouse I mostly use when playing FPS games 🙂

I’ve seen that Logitech has just put out a superlow keyboard that looks like a good way too to keep wrists not so bent while typing. (don’t know if it’s OSX compatible)

cheers

[Bob Cole]

Walter, what size tablet do you recommend?

Smaller seems good for minimizing motion needed to get from one end of screen to the other, but bigger seems better when you need to trace a mask in After Effects.

Bob C