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Permalink Reply by Chris DeMarse on November 1, 2008 at 4:34pm

If possible, I often rest one of my hands lightly on the drip tray and use that as a supporting hand for the pitcher so that there is no extra strain on my handle holding hand (I think that might be verbally redundant). I dunno if that works with your steaming angle or technique... but it seems to take the pressure off.

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Permalink Reply by Brady on November 9, 2008 at 6:40am

Yeah, this is tough. There are so many motions that we repeat over and over again in a single shift. Just based on speculation, my top suspects for injury-causing motions would be: thwacking the doser lever, tamping, locking and unlocking the portafilter. Thwacking the doser is really up there for me - and you probably now do it 50% more since switching to the 21g basket. I tend to think that has more potential for harm than simply holding something that weighs very little.

I seem to recall an ergonomic posture for arms is wrists above elbows, but that is mainly to prevent carpal tunnel when using computer keyboards. Not sure it applies to stationary tasks. I'll see if I can dig up my ergonomics text....

Just throwing that out there. Good luck.

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