Are Knuckle Push Ups GOOD Or BAD -Benefits + Alternatives


Knuckle push ups make you look tough, but are they worth the pain?

In this article, we’ll explore: 

  1. The Benefits Of Knuckle Push Ups (The GOOD)
  2. The Problem With Knuckle Push Ups (The BAD)
  3. How To Do The PERFECT Knuckle Push Up 
  4. Alternatives To  Knuckle Push Ups (The BEST)

Knuckle push ups are a variation of regular push ups done on clenched fists. During knuckle push ups your entire bodyweight is placed on your knuckles instead of open palms. This places the wrist in a neutral position and can alleviate any pain experienced during push ups with bent wrists.  

Knuckle push ups have massive muscle building benefits, but they have one glaring drawback. 

So are knuckle push ups good or bad for building muscle and fighting?

Let’s find out. 

Benefits Of Knuckle Push Ups –  Massive Muscle Building Potential 

Apart from making you look cool, knuckle push up do have a few benefits. 

1. Knuckle push ups are easy on the wrists, but tough on the fists. 

If you experience wrist pain during regular push ups, placing your wrist in a neutral position will help alleviate that pain.  

Knuckle push ups place the wrist in a neutral position compared to regular push ups; thereby reducing pressure on the wrist joint.   

This neutral wrist position transfers forces up the wrists, to elbows and shoulders instead.  

Therefore, knuckle push ups can be beneficial to those individuals who are suffering from wrist pain. 

Unfortunately, this advantage of knuckle push ups is a double-edged sword. 

While knuckle push ups are easy on the wrists, they are extremely painful on the knuckles and fingers. 

This is because your knuckles don’t have a fat-pad to protect your skin and bone from the concrete floor. 

But, you don’t need to do push ups on your knuckles if you have wrist pain. 

To bypass the pain associated with knuckle push ups, do neutral grip push ups on gymnastics rings and parallettes instead. 

Gymnastics rings will give you all the benefits of knuckle push ups (and much more), without any pain! 


2. Knuckle push ups have greater range of motion than regular push ups. 

The biggest benefit of knuckle push ups is that they allow the chest to move beyond the wrists at the bottom.  

Compared to regular push ups, knuckle push ups increase the range of motion of the chest, shoulders and triceps. 

This increased range of motion forces your muscles to do more work, thereby recruiting more muscle fiber and building more strength. 

When doing knuckle push ups, notice how the level of your wrists are higher off the ground. 

Knuckle push ups place my (tiny) wrists a whole 2.5 inches off the floor when compared to regular push ups.  

This is akin to the dumbbell vs barbell bench press. Holding dumbbells with a neutral grip increases range of motion at the bottom of the rep when compared to the barbell.  

These precious additional inches in ROM make the exercise harder to perform. 

This is assuming that you already take your push ups through the maximum range of motion; chest to floor. If you aren’t, then this is a good time to start.  

Remember, knuckle push ups aren’t the only way to increase push up range of motion.  

Elevating your hands on parallettes or gymnastics rings works even better! Elevating your hands on rings will give you even more range than knuckle push ups! 

You can even place your hands on two chairs, bricks or books in order to increase push up range of motion. 

Thus, all the benefits of knuckle push ups can be amplified without ever doing a single knuckle push up! 

Which brings me to why I NEVER do knuckle push ups and so should you. 

The Problem With Knuckle Push Ups – Are They Worth The Pain? 

The limiting factor for any exercise should always be the muscles being worked and nothing else. 

Unfortunately, knuckle push ups hurt! The limiting factor during a set knuckle push ups is the pain and discomfort experienced by the knuckles.  

The pain can be so unpleasant that you are forced to terminate your set before your muscles get worked properly.  

From a muscle building standpoint, this is a no-go.  

Anything that prevents you from giving your maximum during a set is a distraction and must be removed. This is exactly why I don’t recommend doing knuckle push ups. 

But isn’t pain during knuckle push ups supposed to condition the knuckles?    


Knuckle Push Ups For Boxing – Are They Good For Knuckle And Wrist Conditioning For Punching Power

There is speculation that the knuckle push ups condition the knuckles for punching. 

But, there several better methods to condition the wrists and knuckles for punching than doing knuckle push ups. 

When performing knuckle push ups, the knuckles don’t create an impact as when you through a punch. 

The knuckles are instead placed gently on the floor in order to perform as many push ups as possible.  

When throwing a punch, the knuckles absorb high levels of impact unlike forces, unlike those experienced in knuckle push ups.   

Thus, conditioning the knuckles and wrists to absorb high impact damage with knuckle push ups is not specific enough to combat.  

This is known as specificity of training. 

If you’re trying to condition the knuckles and wrists to absorb high levels of impact; then focus specifically on that. 

Instead of doing low impact knuckle conditioning exercises, focus on punching a bag or improving your technique.  

Mixing training modalities – like trying to build muscle and strength while conditioning the knuckles and wrists will lead to inferior results in both. 


Alternatives To Knuckle Push Ups – What To Do INSTEAD 

As we’ve already seen, there is no reason to perform knuckle push ups.  

There are other superior alternatives to the knuckle push ups – especially for increasing range of motion. 

Close grip push ups on gymnastics rings are the BEST alternative to knuckle push ups. 

Rings already provide increased range of motion when doing push ups. 

Rings offer several grip positions while offering increased range of motion and reducing wrist pain.  

Moving your hands closer together while doing push ups on rings further improves range of motion. 

Rings also demand more stabilization during the push up, thereby also working the musculature of the abs, lower back and glutes. 

Rings are a fantastic piece of kit that every serious calisthenics practitioner should have. 


How To Do The PERFECT Knuckle Push Up 

If you’re still adamant about doing knuckle push ups, then this guide will take you through the key pointers on doing them with perfect form. 

Knuckle push ups is like doing regular push ups with clenched fists. 

If you haven’t done knuckle push ups before, you can try them out in a more beginner friendly version by doing them on an incline.  

Another way to get accustomed to the pain and discomfort associated with doing push ups on your knuckles is to do them on your knees.  

Doing knuckle push ups on your knees or on an elevated surface will reduce the amount of bodyweight on your knuckles. This will help you desensitize your fists to the pain over time.  

Always remember to start slow (this has never been an exercise I prescribe doing). 

You can also alleviate the pain is to do knuckle push ups on a folded towel or some sort of firm padding. This is only to be done if you experience wrist pain during regular push ups and cannot get your hands on parallettes, rings or even dumbbells.  

To do the PERFECT knuckle push up: 
  1. Get onto all fours, with your hand beneath your shoulders and your knees beneath your hips. 
  2. Clench your hands to make a fist and place your fists on the ground a little more than shoulder width apart.  
  3. Straighten your arms and legs out by getting into the high plank position. 
  4. Externally rotate your shoulders by pointing the pits of your elbows forward. 
  5. Tuck your chin in and push your shoulder blades forward (toward the ground – scapular protraction). This will prevent your chest from sagging below your shoulders. 
  6. Squeeze your abs, quads and glutes at the same time, this prevents sagging at the hips. 
  7. Inhale at the top by taking a deep breath into your belly. 
  8. Pull your chest to the ground by bending your elbows and slowly pinching your shoulder blades together. Make sure to maintain tightness in the abs, glutes and quads throughout the movement.
  9. Pause for a second (or more if you want to make the rep harder) at the bottom with your chest barely in contact with the floor. At this position your upper arms should make a 45-degree angle with your torso. 
  10. Push yourself back up into the high plank position by pushing the ground away from you.  
  11. Exhale as you get back into the starting position at the top. Check your body alignment – elbow pits pointed forward, shoulder blades pushed toward the ground, abs, quads and glutes engaged.  
  12. Inhale again and repeat the process for your desired number of repetitions.  

There is no magic repetition range for knuckle push ups.

Choose a starting repetition range based on your ability to perform 3 sets with good form. If you can only do 5 repetitions with good form for 3 sets, that’s good enough.

The next time you do knuckle push ups, try to do 6, until you can do a 3 sets 0f 20-25 reps.

Once you achieve this, you can move onto the harder variations of knuckle push ups listed below.  

Variations Of Knuckle Push Ups: 

Once you’re able to do about 15 to 20 repetitions of push ups on your knuckles for 3 sets, you can try other harder variations.  

  1. Decline knuckle push ups – with your feet elevated. 
  2. Close grip knuckle push ups – hands slightly inside shoulder width. 
  3. Wide grip knuckle push ups – hands wider than shoulder width. 
  4. One hand knuckle push ups – as the name implies; push ups done on your knuckles using only one hand.

Conclusion: 

Knuckle push ups have the potential to be a better version of the regular push up because of the extra range of motion they offer during the movement. 

Knuckle push ups also places the wrists in a more comfortable, neutral position than regular push ups, which require bent wrists. 

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw with knuckle push ups is the fact that pain becomes the limiting factor of the exercise as opposed to muscular fatigue. This makes knuckle push ups an inferior strength and muscle building exercise. 

You’re better off performing close grip push ups on an elevated surfaces like books, chairs or yoga blocks. 

But if you want the benefits of the knuckle push up (increased range of motion and more ergonomic wrist alignment); do your push ups on gymnastics rings or parallettes. These have the added benefit of also increasing the involvement of the glutes, lower back and abs as well. 

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