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Constant change in position, dynamic motion, strong & brief muscular exertion of whole hand and arm, even including the shoulder vs constant static position w/ small repetitive motions, where the fingers really are doing almost all the work.


You should try to avoid continuous static load on your muscles, especially the smaller ones. So you should find a typing position where that doesn't happen. You also want to use your muscles in the strong and comfortable part of their range of motion, which depends on the entire chain of joints, because tendons have to stretch past several joints to get to whatever bone they attach to – so for fluent finger motions, you want to keep wrists and hands in as neutral a position as you can.

If your wrists are not straight while typing a lot, that's really bad. I constantly see people typing with their wrists either significantly flexed or significantly extended; doing that a lot is a fast road to RSI, and even doing it a little is pretty unpleasant and inadvisable.

If you are going to type a whole lot at a stretch (say, as a programmer or writer), you want your arms to be mostly passively supported from the shoulder. Having your arm bent at the elbow doesn't cause much strain, as long as the upper arm is hanging loosely down with your shoulder relaxed – so bring the keyboard relatively close to your torso. Resting your wrists, palms, or forearms on some surface and then typing generally causes more strain than having your wrists and palms "floating" above the keyboard while actively typing. You can rest the fingertips lightly on the key tops if you want. You can rest your palms on a palmrest or arms on an armrest (or table, or lap, or whatever) while you are taking a break from typing. It's generally a good idea to take regular breaks.




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