Hi Crystal. Wow, you just changed my seating position significantly. I _never_ used my chair's arm rests while typing. In fact I'm not sure I used them for much of anything except when I was just sitting and thinking, and had recently begun to wonder whether I even need them. When typing, I always rested my wrists on the desk, even though I felt uncomfortable doing so. So after seeing this on my TV, I went to my computer to try it. I had to significantly raise the arm rests, which used to almost fit _under_ the desk, but then I was able to type without my wrists being on the desk. However... I also noticed the arm rests are way too far apart, which I never noticed before because I wasn't using them much. I moved them closer together as far as they'd go, but even at that extreme, the only part of my arms that can reach the rests _while I'm typing_ are my elbows. So my arms aren't getting much support, and this could start irritating my elbows. In typing position, my thumbs are about an inch apart, while my elbows (if I use the arm rests) are nearly two feet apart! If I rested my whole arms on each arm rest, there's a foot of space between my thumbs -- way too far apart to type without severely angling my wrists inward. But I do like that there's no discomfort in my wrists this way. Maybe this will eventually even reduce my tendency to always have tense shoulders (which I've noticed only recently). So I guess I need to get a chair that lets me move the arm rests closer together. Maybe ideally I could also _angle_ them inward so that they'd look like this (view from above): / \ instead of this: | | and then I could rest more than just my elbows when typing. I hope I'm making sense. Come to think of it, is there a chair out there that lets you freely swivel those arm rests so that the whole arm is supported when you go back and forth between keyboard and mouse? Or would that be impractical for some reason I'm not thinking of?
Hi Crystal. Wow, you just changed my seating position significantly. I _never_ used my chair's arm rests while typing. In fact I'm not sure I used them for much of anything except when I was just sitting and thinking, and had recently begun to wonder whether I even need them. When typing, I always rested my wrists on the desk, even though I felt uncomfortable doing so.
So after seeing this on my TV, I went to my computer to try it. I had to significantly raise the arm rests, which used to almost fit _under_ the desk, but then I was able to type without my wrists being on the desk.
However...
I also noticed the arm rests are way too far apart, which I never noticed before because I wasn't using them much. I moved them closer together as far as they'd go, but even at that extreme, the only part of my arms that can reach the rests _while I'm typing_ are my elbows. So my arms aren't getting much support, and this could start irritating my elbows.
In typing position, my thumbs are about an inch apart, while my elbows (if I use the arm rests) are nearly two feet apart! If I rested my whole arms on each arm rest, there's a foot of space between my thumbs -- way too far apart to type without severely angling my wrists inward.
But I do like that there's no discomfort in my wrists this way. Maybe this will eventually even reduce my tendency to always have tense shoulders (which I've noticed only recently).
So I guess I need to get a chair that lets me move the arm rests closer together. Maybe ideally I could also _angle_ them inward so that they'd look like this (view from above): / \ instead of this: | | and then I could rest more than just my elbows when typing. I hope I'm making sense.
Come to think of it, is there a chair out there that lets you freely swivel those arm rests so that the whole arm is supported when you go back and forth between keyboard and mouse? Or would that be impractical for some reason I'm not thinking of?