It is not just those people who work at tasks with repetitive motions that can suffer from soft tissues injuries. The body has continuous connective sheaths that stretch from the toes to the head. They are finely balanced like a spider’s web. Pulling unevenly at those sheaths into directions in which they are not anatomically aligned can result in aches and pains being referred to almost anywhere in the body.
There are, however, two areas where such soft tissue strains can become significantly manifest – the head and the hands.
In the head, headaches, jaw ache, neck and shoulder aches can occur. In the hands, numbness, tingling, coldness and weakness can occur.
TENDONITIS (i.e. flexor tendonitis in fingers, DeQervains Disease at junction of thumb and wrist, flexor and extensor tendonitis in forearm).
Damage can occur to the tendons from over use leading to inflammation. If the hands are held in unusual positions to permit the fingers to complete a task, then often the smaller muscles of the forearm and hand are being used to position the fingers – rather than the larger muscles of the upper arm.
Typing habits can also cause tendonitis:
People, who use wrist rests, extend their wrists and fingers in order to type, rather than use the muscles of the upper arm to hold and move their hands above the keyboard.
They also tend to ulnar deviate at the wrist to reach the distant keys, rather than move the hand across. You should only use your wrist rest to rest on when not typing. |
