- What's up guys, welcome back
once again to the Gaming Career's YouTube channel.
Today's video, we're going to be covering a topic
that is so often overlooked but is incredibly important.
I am constantly hearing about gamers, streamers,
and even esports professionals who are having
to retire or take serious action just to fix an injury
that could have been prevented from the very start.
In this video we're going to be covering
how you can set up your streaming station
in a more ergonomic way, so you can prolong
your gaming career and prevent long-term injuries.
I know that some of you might might not think
it's the most exciting topic to cover in a video,
but it's just so incredibly important and it really
just takes ten minutes to make some big changes
and greatly reduce your risk of a long-term injury.
Now there are several different topics that need
to be covered when we're talking about health
as a streamer, this obviously what we're
going to be covering today, which is the ergonomics.
Things like your desk, your seat, your monitor height,
your keyboard and mouse and how those
should be better positioned for your body.
And there's also things about exercise,
there's things about diet, caffeine,
as well as the massive topic, which is mental health.
And all of those we're going to be covering in future videos.
This video is specifically going to be talking
about the ergonomics of your streaming setup.
So we'll get to all of the setup, monitors, desk,
keyboard and mouse, your chair and the positioning
of all those items to be best for you
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So to get started, let's talk about what is ergonomics?
Why does it matter?
To put it as simply as possible,
ergonomics is about creating an environment
that reduces the stress on the body and improves comfort
by helping it to assume the most optimal posture.
In these positions our bodies and muscles
are able to maintain an upright position,
with as little work as possible.
Thus minimizing the risk of injury, pain,
stiffness, and overall poor health.
So the four main aspects of your streaming center
that we're going to be adjusting for ergonomic design
is your monitor, your keyboard and mouse,
your chair, and finally, your desk.
So let's get started with your monitor
and talk about monitor height.
Now ideally you want to raise your monitor up
so that your eyes are level with
the top 25 percent of the monitor's display.
You should also, if possible,
slightly tilt back the monitor.
This ensures that you don't need to make
large neck movements to be able to look
at all four corners of your monitor.
Many games nowadays put vital hood information
in the bottom or the top corners,
which you need to constantly be looking at.
Setting your monitor up in this way
allows some of the more common areas
of the monitor to be less visually straining.
Now the dangers of setting your monitor
too high is that it will require you
to use your upper neck to look up.
And monitors that are set too low,
which is the more common issue, is that you're going to
get that forward head posture that
is so often associated with gamers.
Now in terms of distance, there's a balance
that needs to be made for the distance
that you sit away from your monitor.
You want to sit far enough away that you can see
all four corners of your monitor like we discussed,
without requiring too much head movement.
But you also don't want to sit so far away
that you lose the detail from your game,
which may be required for you to perform your best.
A general rule of thumb is that your monitor
should be roughly an arms length away.
And you can plus or minus the length of your here.
So somewhere around an arm lengths
away from where you are sitting.
Now most monitors as you buy them,
the stands that they come with don't usually
offer that much adjustability, certainly in terms
of height, which is the biggest problem.
So if you have some old textbooks lying around
from university, from school, it's worth stacking them
and putting them underneath your monitor stand
to raise it to that eye level that I talked about.
For more flexibility and a cleaner looking setup,
I'd recommend picking up some vesa mounts for your monitor,
which will allow you to adjust height as well as
the vertical and horizontal tilt, and even possibly
the orientation if you ever wanted to use
a vertical monitor for Twitch Chat or something similar.
They can be found for relatively cheap
on sites like Amazon and they come in various configurations
for single, double, or even triple monitor setups.
I'll link some of my favorites that I have used before
in the description of this video.
So if you do want to check out a vesa mount,
do go and look at the description and
check out some of the links I have there.
The only thing you need to consider that
the monitor that you have, is it vesa mount compatible.
And if so, is what is the dimensions?
Usually, monitors are either vesa 100 or vesa 75,
and that just means how far the distance
between the screw holes is, 100 millimeters
or 75 millimeters.
So just check that info before purchasing one.
Okay, so monitor done, now
let's look at the keyboard and mouse.
And the vast, vast majority of injuries that come
to esports professionals, or streamers,
or just gamers in general are things like
carpal tunnel or RSI, and they are
completely related to the wrist.
And before we look at why, I just want to quickly cover,
I do have a big scar on my wrist
and I know it's going to get some comments about it.
It wasn't from a game related injury,
it was actually from a skiing injury,
and I had some surgery on it a few years ago.
But I just wanted to clear that up in case
anybody thought I had any of these injuries
like carpal tunnel or RSI and had surgery to fix it.
It has meant, however, that I am even
more careful and aware of my wrist position when gaming.
So the most important thing to implement here is
that you are holding your mouse in a neutral position.
So what that means is that your wrist isn't rotated
either towards your thumb or rotated
towards your pinky or little finger.
Those major injuries like carpal tunnel or RSI
that I talked about that happen to streamers
and esport professionals or just gamers that
spend a lot of time sat in front of their computer.
They usually come from having a
non-neutral starting point for their mouse.
Although it doesn't seem like much,
a small extra rotation when multiplied many times
over months or years of gaming can cause
painful and restrictive wrist injuries,
which can prevent you from gaming in the future.
So giving it just a little bit of though
to your mouse and it's position now
might be a very worthwhile investment.
Prevention is always better than cure
and you don't want to look back in five or ten years time
and wish you'd taken more care of your wrist and hand.
In terms of actually how you hold your mouse,
I'm sure some of you may have heard of
the three main mouse grips.
Palm grip where most of your palm and the
under part of your hand is in contact with the mouse.
Claw grip where you have a gap between the mouse
and your hand, and you're actually
using the ends of your fingers to click on the buttons.
And finally, fingertip grip where less of the mouse
is in contact with your hand, your hand's
a little bit further back and again
you're using your fingertips to click the buttons.
How you grip your mouse is largely down to
the size of your hands, the size and
the shape of your mouse, and just general preference.
The claw and fingertip grip styles will use
more muscles then the palm grip,
therefore do have a slightly higher risk of injury.
As long as you're remembering to position
your wrist neutrally, these increased risks are minimal and
so your grip style shouldn't really be a deciding factor.
I would however recommend that you get a mouse
that is right for your hand and not just using something
because it was cheap or because it was on a special deal.
So I will recommend a channel down in the description below,
it's called Rocket Jump Ninja.
It's a guy who reviews pretty much every gaming mouse
available on the market, and really goes in depth.
It's been a fantastic resource for me,
I've watched him for many year and I'll leave a link
down in the description below if you're interested
in looking for a new mouse and wondering
what would fit your hand best.
Now the same whole thing about the positioning
of your wrists also applies to your other hand,
which is going to be touching your keyboard.
Make sure your wrist is neutral.
So if you are using the WASD like most games
are set to default as your movement keys on your keyboard,
imagine a straight line running up your wrist,
along your middle finger to the W key.
That neutral position will help prevent injuries.
Okay so moving on to the chair that you use
for your gaming or streaming setup.
And I'm sure you're aware, there are countless companies
now making these gaming chairs and they sponsor streamers,
they sponsor esports organizations,
they even sponsor tournaments.
So some tournaments will all have the exact same kind of
gaming chair that the professionals are using.
A quick word of warning though, these gaming chairs,
they aren't all created equal.
And some of them, even though they look
exactly the same can be constructed from
really poor materials, poor quality foam,
and can actually be detrimental
to the ergonomics and how you're sitting.
Take for example some the best selling
gaming chairs on Amazon.
And although they look similar to those that you see
on the esports stages, they are, in fact,
made of wood and really cheap foam.
I myself use a chair from noblechairs, it's called the Hero.
And while it is on the more expensive end,
I am sitting for the majority of my week
and I want something that provided some
lumbar support as well as having
some real office accreditation behind them.
Really, all I want to advise is that
you take a grain of salt with you
when you are shopping for a gaming chair on Amazon.
In most cases you'd be better off getting a traditional
office chair from somewhere like Ikea, for a similar price.
And sure you might not think that they look as cool
as the ones on Amazon, but sitting on a wood frame
with some poor quality foam construction
for 50 plus hours a week won't do you much good.
Okay, so at what height should you
actually have your chair set at?
Well your chair height should allow your feet
to be flat on the floor and your knees
creating a 90 degree angle so that both your knees
and your hips are in line with each other.
If your chair is set too low, causing your knees
to be above your hips, or your chair is set too high,
causing your hips to be above your knees,
you're going to be directly affecting the position of your
lower back and pelvis, which can restrict blood flow.
If you are a smaller person and struggle to get your feet
flat on the floor for your desk height,
then you should purchase a foot rest
that raises your feet and allows you to keep them flat.
Now most chairs nowadays allow you to have some sort of
freedom in changing the angle of the back rest.
And you want to have that set somewhere
between 90 and 110 degrees.
Much of the advice written online recommends
sitting directly upright at 90 degrees and
that is personally what I find to be the most comfortable.
Many chairs nowadays come with some form of lumbar support,
so if you do find it more comfortable to have
a slight recline when sitting, just
make sure you're supporting the
natural curvature of your lower back properly.
Finally, if your chair allows you to some adjustment
of your arm rests, you should be positioning those
to allow your shoulders to be relaxed and
your elbows comfortably supported at 90 degrees.
If you set your armrests too high,
your shoulders are going to be shrugged,
possibly giving you a stiff neck.
Ideally the armrests should be at the same height
as your desk, which allows your elbow to rest
while still having full control to make large sweeps
with your mouse if you do use
a low sensitivity when gaming like I do.
Now probably the hardest thing to control
in your streaming setup is the actual desk.
And I'm well aware that most people don't have a sit/stand
desk or something that's height adjustable.
Thankfully, the only real requirement for a desk,
in terms of ergonomics, is that it allows you
to meet the other requirements that we have mentioned.
So as long as you have enough depth
that your monitor can be an arms length away,
your knees can fit under your desk and still be
at that 90 degree angle, and your arms naturally rest
with your elbows at 90 degrees, then they're all good.
Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, this by no means
covers the vast landscape that is the health of a streamer.
We still need to cover topics like exercise, diet,
mental health, hydration, caffeine, there's so much still
to cover and I aim to be covering those
in future videos on the Gaming Careers channel.
So if you haven't yet subscribed, now would be a great time
to make sure that you're notified of all my new uploads.
I do want to give a quick disclaimer, I am not
a health professional and if, after setting up any of these
exercises you're still having these issues,
with injuries or playing, you should of course
go and seek advice from a medical professional .
Hopefully some of this advice has been useful to you
and you've been able to make some changes
to the ergonomics of your streaming setup.
I'm always interested in seeing your guy's
streaming setup so do tag me in the posts on Twitter.
I'm going to be re-Tweeting some of my favorites,
sharing them with the rest of the Gaming Careers community.
Finally a massive thank you, as always, to the Patreons
this month, these people help support the Gaming Careers
YouTube channel allowing me to do this as a full time job
and I'm forever thankful for their support.
If you are interested in becoming a Patreon,
please do go and check out the page,
it's linked in the description below.
And subscribers, as always I'll see you in the next video.
Peace!