Intensive keyboard used caused me two problems: soft tissue overload in my palms and elbow pain. After trying Microsoft Natural 4000, Kinesis Advantage 2, I finally settled on ErgoDox EZ with Kailh Silver switches.

These switches don't require much force to activate, and I retrained myself to type lightly. This made the palm issue go away. For my elbows, physical therapy and foam rolling made the pain go away. I keep it away by ensuring proper posture when sitting: bending my elbows without turning my forearms inside (like the person pictured on the right in the article) and tilting the keyboard to minimize wrist rotation. I believe this helps minimize tension in the ulnar nerve. If you want to feel that tension then try a few reps of ulnar nerve flossing!

I optimized my typing further with a custom keyboard layout (see https://configure.zsa.io/ergodox-ez/layouts/60Q7r/pjzqDd/0):

1. Colemak as middle ground between QWERTY and Dvorak.

2. Command, Shift, Alt, and Control keys on both sides of the keyboard. I'm Polish and a standard keyboard layout forces you to use the right alt + letter to type diacritical characters (for example ą is Right Alt + a). This prevents you from typing with proper technique, but having two equivalent Alts solved the problem.

3. Hyper (Command + Shift + Alt + Control) and Meh (Shift + Alt + Control) on both sides of the keyboard. I use Hyper for system-level shortcuts (e.g. Hyper + A is Sublime Text; Hyper + Q is Sublime Merge; Hyper + Z is Ghostty) and Meh for application-level shortcuts (e.g. Meh + 2 is a two column layout in Sublime).

4. I have dedicated keys for (), [], and _, so that I can type them without modifiers.

5. There's a function layer with function keys from F1 to F24 - useful for switching panes in tmux!

6. A dedicated mouse layer helps me reduce my mouse use.

If you want to improve your workplace ergonomics I suggest taking an iterative approach and making full use of customization abilities in the software and hardware you own.

I also made a special belt for my keyboard: each half had it's holster and I was able to type standing with my arms and wrists completely straight. This helped a lot with alleviating elbow pain.