There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

Around 2 months ago, I was rank pushing in osu!mania hard, I was at it for a week, and nothing seemed to be going wrong… that is, until I attempted galaxy collapse. I couldn’t pass, so I played the map over and over again, eventually my stamina completely died. I tried playing the next day, and my finger hurt; the next day, same thing; day after that, same thing again.

Abraker said it was a compression injury but I believe it to be rsi. You see, I used to play mania lying down on my back with the computer on an angled position on my lap. My fingers were playing with the Q W [ ] keys on a 40° incline. It was really uncomfortable, and after a while, my fingers started hurting bad whenever I used that layout. I started using A S ; ‘, and after that, the pain went away, and I could play fine regardless of the angle.

So anyway, back to the galaxy collapse thing.

I took a break for quite a while and I seemed to be recovering, I could at least type without pain at this point; however, whenever I played demanding maps on mania or tried to farm DT, my right hand pointer finger would flare up in pain and start hurting. So I took a break from FFR, and most of mania (aside from a few odd SV maps and low bpm stamina maps).

When I came back to Texas (a little over 4 weeks ago) I tried playing FFR on my bro’s laptop just to see what it was like to play with an actually good setup - he had a 160hz monitor and the battlefield themed razer KB. I did this to see if 60hz was truly holding me back, and shocker, it was. It was so much easier to read on his monitor, and I didn’t even need to set my scroll speed high in order to read properly. Anyway, I played a few maps and stopped before I broke my bro’s keyboard or he came home to me mashing.

So now, I tried playing some yesterday, and I don’t get finger pains anymore (only slight aches with tedious marathons); and I’ve been wondering, what’s the best way to proceed from here? What’s the best way to play this game again and climb the ranks, but not get RSI coming back or damaging my hand?

Can I please get some advice from veteran players who’ve been playing for a long time and may/may not’ve had a similar experience?

Thanks —-

UPDATE: I've isolated one specific instance where only one part of my hand hurt. After I started aching for a bit, the space between the webbing of my middle and ring finger started to hurt. it was more on the left side, and it felt like it was being stretched almost. I'm not sure what that means.

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

Play for fun as often as you like, when the urge hits to try and push let it happen naturally, not every session will be your best session. Stop playing when unnatural pain starts to occur, like as if your body is telling you to chill out, seriously listen to your body.

If you have a strong desire to improve rapidly and want to push every session just keep in mind it's ok to play easier songs for fun still, and it will help with your accuracy. The key thing to take away from your sessions should typically be internalizing your improvement, taking note of if you tried something different like tapping keys lighter, or in a any way that increases performance. Set your own goals short and long term and you'll get to where you want to be with time.

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

Thanks for the advice! I’ll be certain not to push myself too hard now. I can adapt to this tho, and I plan on it. I wanna reach the top bracket for levels in FFR one day (tho levels are meaningless cause they’re based off score)

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

The best way to prevent injury is to take preventative measures to avoid future strain. What this means in practice is to try becoming more ergonomic, reduce overexertion, and increase your range of motion through stretching. Here are some things you can do that could help:

Ergonomics at the desk
- Ensure that your wrists and fingers remain parallel to your forearms while playing.
- Try to prevent bending or turning your fingers to accommodate a key setup. A concave spread setup, where your fingers naturally rest on the keys when fully stretched out, is a great option to look into.
- Have a flat, level play surface for your wrists and forearms, to prevent unnecessary pressure or poor form compensation.
- Try to keep your wrists flat on your surface, preferably with gel padding to absorb harsh impacts from stamina intensive or very fast content.

Time management
- Try to limit your sessions to approximately two hours in length. Exceeding this amount seems to put additional stress on the body and will catch up with you if you're playing frequently, especially while limit pushing.
- Don't play more than 3-4 full sessions a week (basically always give yourself at least a day or two to recover). It is overexertion and will catch up with you over time.
- Take intermissions between particularly stamina draining songs, where you quickly massage your wrists, play far easier content for a few minutes, or both.

Ergonomics away from the desk
- I highly recommend doing these stretches twice a day, every day. It will help increase your range of motion and reduce some strain and pain of existing wrist issues. These stretches basically saved me like 4 months ago.
- Physical activity and exercise are great, and can amplify your abilities if done with caution. Be weary of lifting mainly with your wrist, or needlessly contorting your wrist while trying to do anything physical. Also be weary of specifically working out your arms and then also playing Etterna on the same day, it is probably too much stress to handle at once.
- Try to get some half decent nutrition and a fair bit of protein in your diet. This is more than just for wrist injury prevention, but your body needs fuel to heal itself. Try not to fill your tank exclusively with sugar and empty calories so your body can do it's thing.
- If your wrists currently hurt when doing various mundane tasks, I'd recommend getting a gel wrap or splint to wear for your wrist(s) when you aren't using them, or are using them lightly.

Also never forget
- ALWAYS listen to your body! If you feel a sharp spike in pain in your wrists or fingers at any point, don't push through it. Don't proceed. Sharp pains are never good when working out, and they aren't good here either! If you feel like a knife just hit your hand, give it a good massage and a few days to hopefully fix itself. Always take it easy when coming back from sharp pain, because you can trigger it again if you aren't careful.

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

Play more

There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

So, y’all know about my RSI, right? Well, that combined with HRT and some inactivity hasfucked my vibro skills. I can’t, and never will be able to vibro at my old speed. The other skills I’ve been able to recover after inactivity over the years, but as far as vibro; I had a short run where I was able to do it, I’m no longer able to do it now.

This means that my PB on death piano is impossible for me to beat now (at least on normal speed), not to mention that getting more than 1 tier point from on do I smile? is also likely impossible.

The only chance I’d ever have of beating these records is if the leaderboards start accepting downrates and decrementing a certain percentage of score. And even then, the intro of death piano, not to mention the ending (240+ BPM 1/8th) is gonna be very hard to SDG. I would sooner be able to achieve the Halo 2 LASO speedrun WR than I would be able to FC any 100lvl+ songs…

This makes me kinda sad actually. I kind of wish that I could FC every song eventually, and this will not be possible on any songs with long jack patterns.

The only thing I can do is try to get in better shape and make my arms stronger while I improve my reading… but not even that might work.

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

git gud again

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

While HRT might have some effect, it's pretty negligible. For example, I started HRT in April 2014 and I got some of my best scores in the months afterwards (including some with jacks/vibro). Inactivity and RSI would have a much more drastic effect on your skill than HRT. Especially considering you have been on HRT for 12 days.

For the time being, cool down playing (or take a break for awhile) so as to not aggravate your RSI. Once you're healed up then you should be able to come back and improve.

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

I haven’t been on HRT 12 days

Day/month/year

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

Okay 3 months. Still applicable though that HRT's effect on your skill at this point would be almost negligible.

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

death piano isnt vibro

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

It clearly is. Vibro is anything that requires you to mash semi-unconsciously instead of relying on reading patterns.

Re: How to recover from RSI and get back to my old skill level?
 

Yes

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

You are not at a sufficient skill level to determine what is and isn't vibro.

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

death piano vibro lmao

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

You quite literally have to mash the intro to pass it. Just cause it’s 3 lanes doesn’t make it not vibro. Vibro doesn’t always equate to 4 lane mashing.

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

do you even know what vibro means?

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

TIL "Really fast" is the same as "Vibro"

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

The last trill in Death Piano requires vibro right? Cus I was never fast enough to fc it (I can't vibro for shit) lol

Re: There’s some personal best scores that are impossible for me to beat now…
 

Vibro is actually when you play a file that's too hard for you while shitposting on ffr