I've been working on developing callouses on my knuckles for awhile now, but I'm beginning to worry about whether or not it's actually safe. I've noticed that sometimes I get a sharp pain in my index knuckle when I hit farther down on the knuckle, like with a backfist. I mostly avoid hitting with that knuckle now, but I'm worried the same thing will happen to my middle knuckle. I really can't afford to develop something like arthritis or tendonitis, is it possible for that to happen by conditioning your knuckles?
Sounds a pretty dumb thing for a healthy individual to do. Martial Arts should be partly concerned with health not injuring yourself out of some macho belief that you are forging your body into a weapon.
Stupid thing to do, yes you will develop athuritus and by the time your reach you middle ages you will have trouble using your hands. The safest thing to do is no condition your hands at all, we are living in the 12st centuary not the 10th. Even knuckle push ups will do damage in the long term. Anyway, why try to condition something that is already at it's hardest, you cant harden bone any more than it is, learn to punch properly and hit the right targets with you punch and no conditioning is required. And don't beleive these anceint tales of how to toughen up your body by punching brick walls etc, it is all bull, but makes for a good Kung Fu flick. regards Pat
if you hit someone in the forehead or other hard bone, you are going to bust your hand conditioned or not. conditioning a small pad of skin on the end of your knuckles is not going to stop that. spend that time working on your aim.
Pat... I'm sorry, I really wanted to let this one slide..... BUT I JUST COULDN'T! HAHAHAHAHAHA.... 12th century ...... try not to get the black death now won't you? :Angel:
Well, that is why you need to learn to hit properly, ant at the right spot. Only idiot would punch one's skull. Of course you’re going to break hand that way. The primary reason you are conditioning your knuckles is to build up resistance to the pain when striking. The process of doing that should be systematic, as to not damage your bones. No one mentioned breaking walls damnit. You can't convince me that doing 20 pushup reps 3 times a week on knuckles will damage bones. You can't.
Knuckle press ups are for strengthening the wrists. They don't have much of an effect on your knuckles.
Knuckle pushups in moderation are good to lightly condition your knucles and will not cause arthritis.
Surely just by doing pad work you are conditioning your knuckles. Anyway according to taekwondo hand book i read (i'm not saying it's fact) there are two types of conditioning, those in which skin and stuff builds up and those in which bone builds up and nerves get damaged. Hitting pads repeatedly apparently just builds up calluses rather than bone.
I probably should have been more clear in my first post...I'm not doing anything crazy like punching brick walls full force and I'm not trying to reshape my bones or anything. All I do is lightly tap walls and rub my knuckles lightly on rough surfaces. So basically, I'm just trying to make my skin thicker. Would it be safe to at least rub them on a brick or some sandpaper while my index knuckle recovers? I'm not exactly trying to forge my body into a weapon, but it helps for things like heavybag work without gloves.
Considering that millions upon millions of people develop arthritis just from being a human, I really don't want to take my chances with that.
Knuckle press-ups are important if you lack strength in your wrist, you have a better chance of developing arthritis after breaking your wrist hitting a bag than you will doing knuckle pressups.
Your wrist and general forearm strength should be just fine from lifting weights and pad and bag work.
Not really, arthritis can be due to genetically having weak bones or ones that are prone to that kind of condition. Knuckle pressups if anything can help strengthen your knuckles making arthritis less likely. Again i must emphasise that moderation is needed.
Explain exactly how they strengthen the knuckles. Do they make the bone denser? Do they make the wrist more stable?
They certainly make the wrist more stable as well as making the skin around the knucle as well as the bone more resiliant.
Descibe how the bone becomes 'more resiliant' in scientific terms. Also, making the skin tougher isn't that great a benefit as sparring and bag work will do this anyway, same goes for wrist stability (I'm also a bit sceptical as to exactly that extra 'wrist stability' entails from a scientific point of view).
