Exhausted hands

[Apeirophobe]

I'm guessing this quite possibly isn't a rare phenomenon. 60 seconds of typing -as fast as you can- can be tiring for your hands, up to a point where they go numb, sort of. Especially when taking more tests in a row, which isn't really surprising. I usually wriggle my wrist and fingers about and take a little break, not wanting to induce RSI.

It can be frustrating. Being on fire, feeling like I'm going to beat my high score, when, 40-50 seconds in, my dexterity decreases drastically, sometimes preventing any motion at all for a couple of seconds.

Is there any way to train the endurance of your hands? Obviously typing a lot for longer periods of time could be an option. I'm asking those here who have far more experience than me, what their experiences are regarding this.

Also, let me seize this opportunity to compliment the creators and moderators of this site. I think it's a great idea, a great idea well executed, the layout is really well done and the people seem really nice. Kudos!

[GaborG]

Hello Apeirophobe,

This indeed isn't a unique phenomenon, it will eventually occur with more veteran typers aswell after a persistant period of typing. Although I haven't been to the likes of any sort of typing competition for some time now, however a few years back when I've partaken at local and national, and international competitions (such as Intersteno), the standard setting for length was 10 or 30 minute typings.
That's non-stop, with a continuous text (in case the text would run out - full text being around ~30.000 characters long, then you'd have to continue with page one again).

Personally what I found most effective in attaining endurance and accuracy for such lengths were the following:

• practice your letter arrangement typing (not sure what they call these in English, but I'm talking about when you're typing "asf dsf fsd fsa" and the sorts) - it may seem repetitive and boring after a while (after all, it is), however what you're actually trying to achieve with these is two-fold:



• you're memorizing where each key is found on the keyboard, alas you will eventually leave behind the "hunt-and-peck" and be able to solely focus on the text you're transcribing


• your mind isn't the only thing doing the memorizing, you're also pushing the movements into your muscle and reflexes - after a given level of expertise, you won't be thinking about "yeah, I know where that key is, and which finger I have to use", but you will be orchestrating your fingers to supplement each other (aka the next finger that needs to move to the next letter), so that they don't collide on their trek




• along with strenghtening your subconscious-controlled finger manouvering, actualy physical fitness also supports your main cause of increasing speed and tolerance of fatigue - doing forearm (aka underarm, or lowerarm) curls, and strengthening your back muscles to support a stable posture while typing will also lead to better coordination for not only your hands, but also assist keeping your head focused more easily on the text and input fields

I wouldn't say these one-minute bursts with mixed up words is a bad thing, however getting a feel for the other side of things (aka varied length, coherent text typings) can also lead to better typing flow for your technique.
Not sure about the policy of this board about linking to other site resources, but there is a nice 1 and 10 minute typing test on the Intersteno site for different languages, and there are a bunch of online key-arrangement practices as well (what I was typing in the first list point).

Yeah, at first glance I'd have to say the above, and lots of practice after practice helped achieve better overall results at different aspects.

Hope you have a good time here at 10FF, and will generally enjoy typing!

Greets,
Gabor


P.S.: edited the multi-level list, list within a list wasn't supported, so inserted a quote block instead

[Apeirophobe]

GaborG,

Thank you for taking the time to reply (elaborately at that!)

I think I got the letter arrangements, memorising, etc. down already. Or maybe not. I have reached 149 WPM *boast* in Dutch though, so I must be doing something right.

(...) physical fitness also supports your main cause of increasing speed and tolerance of fatigue - doing forearm (aka underarm, or lowerarm) curls, and strengthening your back muscles to support a stable posture while typing will also lead to better coordination for not only your hands, but also assist keeping your head focused more easily on the text and input fields.

This I might try. I'll just be taking more tests anyway and see where it gets me.

Cheers!

[Stephen Athon]

I am not an expert typer, but I can offer some simple observations. Do not type as fast as you can all the time - slowing down to practice for accuracy also gives your hands a break. Keep your hands in a relaxed state, which is more efficient. It might be that tense hands are causing you to be sore.