WEAK HANDS? Ergonomic knives help people with RSI

if you have repetitive strain injury or a little bit of arthritis or just plain weak hands

you know how difficult it can be when you're making dinner and you're trying to chop things

especially if you're using a knife like this where it's just flat you know and so you have

to sort of contort your hands to use it so here to talk about some really wonderful ergonomic

kitchen tools including knives and a pair of scissors is kevin dwyer so kevin welcome what

what do you want to tell us about your hands or you know these tools that you've discovered well

you know you and i have talked about it but you know in the in in my later years

that i'm fast approaching here i do find that i have problems with my hands somewhat i do have the

snap fingers i have a piece of hardened cartilage in my hand the repetitiveness of it can hurt as

well and a friend of mine um turned me on to these uh fantastic knives uh and scissors uh that make

it so much easier to do um you know the prep work for all your cooking and i love to cook so this is

this has been a lifesaver for me in obtaining these it's the simple design of the knives i

think that really kind of work these uh are very easy to just simply you know slice down with your

arm rather as opposed to just always just using your hand so i feel like i've got a much better

grip the tool is curved rather than your wrist exactly this is the knife the chef knife that

i've been using you know for years and uh um but the one thing with these type of knives is that

i have to hold it like this and you can see my hand uh my fingers wrapped around it that it's

it's more difficult to hold on to this to grab it and to really hold on to it but with this knife

you're holding on to it in a much different way and you've got your fingers right on the ridge of

it so you're using your whole hand as opposed to just your fingers so you're using your whole arm

you're using your whole arm and the power of your arm the power of your arm exactly

so it makes it a lot easier um and of course the uh the knives themselves come in a variety

of sizes they come in uh this one here again i've got them all with the cases on them because that's

how you want to store them but the uh nine inch which certainly helps you a lot especially if

you're working with uh poultry and cutting up a chicken or anything of that nature or even kind of

chopping into a butternut squash size down they have is a um uh is a seven inch which again uh

certainly hops uh helps with a lot of the chopping on the prep work when you're setting up for soups

and casseroles and things of that nature and then you have the five inch which i was just using and

um that certainly helps with a lot of the cleaning of the vegetables and cutting off the ends

and then my parry knife the small one which is a three inch one which honestly gets used probably

about ten times a day for various activities around the kitchen so you know all these different

sizes certainly help um what i also like a lot is is the scissors that this company put fiskers

again has put together because again you're not you're you're you're able to just um instead of

fitting your fingers in and trying to cut things it's all by pressure and you can simply close it

so if you're cutting different things i actually always have these uh with me as i go into the

garden to cut flowers or anything of that nature but i also find it certainly a lot easier to um

cut herbs and you're using your power grip rather than straining your fingers or trying to slip them

through the loops on a scissor exactly i mean just as i do this i can feel my fingers you know

a little bit of a snap i mean i've been up all day and i've been exercising to the gym and everything

so my hands are much looser than they can be if you're uh starting off kind of cold into a into

a cooking project but um it's it's more difficult to do a scissors as standard scissors than it is

the pressure scissors which you can pretty much yeah those look great so would you like to see me

how i use these knives yes i would okay chop away it's a much easier um slicing if you're using your

whole arm as opposed to just and you've got great control over that as well i feel like

the real basic um perks of a knife like this is that even though you you you've got a hold of it

nice and and firm because your fingers in your thumb and your finger on either side

of it on this ridge rather and by pushing down on it you really feel like you've got a good control

and your hands not going to slip by any chance so just press this down a little bit

so now i'll use the seven inch

and you can see because i can use my entire arm it all slides in very easily

now a harder vegetable obviously um again if you were using a regular knife something along this

chef's knife it it becomes a little more difficult because you don't have a good control on your hand

for me i don't have a good control on this because my fingers are weak

and it's either with an arthritis or the snap fingers or something

but it makes it much difficult to grab and really hold on to this

and again with this knife and this ridge down near the blade i feel like i've got a hold of it like i

like a much stronger control over the whole mechanism of it so when you're using your arm

that's a very important thing to be able to make sure you have control when you're working on

especially the harder vegetables are actually a little bit more difficult because it's easier for

them to slip certainly you can you can do other things by uh you know flattening off one side

of the vegetable so that it has a solid side of course that will help you quite a bit as well if

you kind of have one side that's that's flat and it lies flat on the cutting board um but again i

i find that i have a better control over the knife because of the two ridges out near the blade that

i can grab onto and then using my arm as opposed to just my fingers it makes it a much easier

cutting in in prepping those tools look really wonderful but they also look really really

sharp which is probably why it's so easy for you to chop carrots they hold on to the sharpness

the blades uh hold on to the sharpness quite a bit i mean i do have sharpeners and and uh but

i find that these are already so sharp to begin with i rarely ever have to uh fine-tune them at

all at least i haven't at this point and i've had these for a couple of years a year and a half and

what i've learned in my years of working in the hospitality uh business with some very top-notch

chefs but it's important to keep them you know and be safety and keep them on the on the guards

because especially when they're in the in the uh drawers and you're going to fish around and get

something out of the drawer you don't want to come across a sharp knife so it's important to keep the

guards on them when you're storing them so these are these are wonderful and because of course they

have a they have a top a guard that goes on top of it um and so you can just slip these right into

uh your pocket or your uh whatever you wear for the garden and uh again they're very

smartly designed i mean you just slip that on and you can just close it in about two seconds

one second so they're wonderful they're really wonderful um you know those ergonomic tools

can really make a difference and i think a lot of people love to cook but they don't want to

have their hands hurt while they're doing it and i will say one other thing too because um again they

were given to me so i didn't you know pay any more than a quarter to make that exchange

for uh knives not being uh a gift but um i did go online just to see what the company

had to say about their their tools and the one thing that kind of surprised me

is the cost they're very reasonably priced um every one of these knives are very reasonably

priced especially in comparison to uh some of your more expensive lines your japanese knives etc

but they're they they've been fantastic for my use and uh i've enjoyed having them yes well thank you

for sharing this information because we need tools that are shaped to the hand rather than vice versa

and you know if you've got trigger finger or weak hands for whatever reason or

you know anything that can reduce hand strain and help you use your whole body is really

really a gift to people i think anybody i think a lot of people who don't have hand injuries

would really appreciate these knives absolutely i think you're absolutely right on that.