Elbow Pain due to Computer use

Is sitting at your desk all day making your elbows sore? While using your mouse isn’t an extreme sport, over time it can cause the muscles in your forearm to be overused and unhappy. Repetitive strain injuries (RSI’s) aren’t just for the super active and weight lifting folk. Repetitive, overuse of the wrist can lead to tendon pain in the forearm muscles that run from the wrist to the elbow. How can we avoid desk related elbow pain? 

• Mouse pads with gel supports can be helpful
• Check your keyboard and mouse position 
• Strengthen your muscles. We aren’t made to sit down all day holding a tiny electrical mouse.  It is important that you are strengthening your upper body away from work to help create stronger muscles that can take the repetitive load. Example –  Try holding some little 1-2kg weights and doing some wrist movements or squeeze a tennis ball 30 times. 

For the rundown on elbow pain see our elbow pain blog here and for all your workstation ergonomic information see here