[mgarfias]

Omg thank you. Having some massive pain in my shoulder (when externally rotating my arm), and I think it’s due to moving my arm out to get the trackpad/mouse.

I’m going to try this keyboard setup deal with the track pad in the center.

[gboss]

I think the best thing you can do is resistance training exercise. Also going from a wide keyboard (full size Apple keyboard with number pad) to a narrow keyboard (narrow Apple Keyboard no number pad) worked for me. For a while I was doing the exercise in the video below and it helped me but I think just regular weight training can do wonders. I mostly just do shoulder, back, arms, and chest exercises and still haven’t had the pain I used to have. Hope you find something that works for you!

https://youtu.be/IdDqdrGMFBw

[mgarfias]

Yeah, lots of lifting in my life (3d/wk), and we do hit shoulders a lot. Problem is lots of impingement during some motions. And its been getting worse, not better.

[rcarr]

Have a look at crossover symmetry, a lot of people swear by it for fixing shoulder and upper back mobility injuries/issues. I think it’s pretty extensively used in CrossFit and baseball communities. If you search for a copy of the exercise chart on Google images you can put a cheap version together yourself using standard resistance bands and a door belt.

https://crossoversymmetry.com

[microtonal]

It is not necessarily better, since it probably requires you to bend your wrist. So you solve shoulder pain and get wrist pain in exchange. Also, you probably want to tent a keyboard to avoid forearm pronation [1] and then your trackpad hides between the keyboard halves unless you raise it.

(I am not sure there is a good solution outside avoiding the mouse by using a mouse layer or something like Shortcat on the Mac.)

[1] See e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK72285/

[alanbernstein]

I'm sure it's not for everyone, but I solved this in a unique way. I have a steeply tented split keyboard, and a trackpad on its own angled mount. The trackpad sits just past the number row on my right keyboard half.

[nvln]

I was having similar issues a couple of years back. I'm now using 2 trackballs - Expert Mouse and Vertical trackball to distribute the movement. The pain hasn't come back and I enjoy having dual mice with some extra buttons.

I tried using the expert mouse between my ergodox splits, but the movement was even more awkward as I had to bring my elbow closer to my abdomen. YMMV.

Over the years, adding variety/variability has helped me more than many specific solutions. Seems obvious in hindsight given the R in RSI :D

[camgunz]

I had this problem and solved it by using trackpoint keyboards [0], sadly they're pretty pricey on eBay now though. There are newer models that are slightly worse keyboards, but are wireless.

I also haven't had trouble using a trackpad, centered relative to whatever monitor/screen I'm using.

Good luck!

[0]: https://sharktastica.co.uk/wiki?id=lenovo8855

[comfypotato]

You might enjoy mouse keys. It’s a QMK feature if you have a QMK board. There are a few adjustments you can make that make them very usable.