I have been in Tae Kwon Do for about 5 months, and as part of that been doing knuckle-strengthening exersises, such as punching the floor and knuckle pushups. These are all on the first and second knuckles (at the base and in the middle of the finger, respectively) of the index and middle fingers.
Do you think that this’ll hurt my hands? Deaden the nerves? Problems later in life? I’m worried 
I’m not a doctor, but I am (was) a martial artist - TaeKwon Do, in fact. All the knuckle-toughening excercises will do is make you less likely to hurt your hand when you punch something. They won’t give you swollen knuckles or freaky callouses or anything like that.
If you’re really worried, check out your instructor’s knuckles. He’s probably been doing the exact same excercises, only for a much longer period of time than you have. Relax.
IANAD, but IMO, punching hard objects - including peoples’ heads - is an invitation to hand injury. Moreover, IMO it has little if any legitimate purpose in any fighting art. Boxers know enough to take care of their hands. Wanna hit someone in the head with something hard, pick up a stick or a rock.
Clarification - I should have said “punching a hard object with a closed fist.”
Moreover, I think you would have to look pretty long and hard to find a more fragile joint less able to be “strengthened” for impact than your knuckles. I find they come in useful in other ways that make me hesitant to invite injury to them.
Course, I don’t know anything about TKD, and never had any need to break boards.
I used to practice a martial art form that had a heavy focus on physical conditioning (Uechi Ryu). Basically it comes down to how far you go. Light physical pain conditioning is fine and you can continue with that indefinitely. Heavy conditioning will mess you up. If you ever want to see what heavy conditioning will do to you, dig up a picture of Mas Oyama some time (founder of the Kyokushinkai school of karate). The man has Mickey Mouse knuckles.
Of course, what I mean by heavy and what other people consider heavy is slightly skewed. Just banging forearms and shins a couple of times a week with a partner or whatnot won’t hurt you if you don’t go crazy with it.
I’m somewhat dubious about most knuckle-toughening drills. About the only thing you can do to toughen them up is to either develop thick callous (not necessarily desirable if you want to do something besides punch other people) or break the bone and reheal them (something like what MO did), which is even worse.
If you really want to hit people without hurting yourself, either be sure to hit them somewhere soft (NOT the forehead or jaw), or with a part of your body that can take the damage (such as your palm or elbow). Boxers wear gloves for a reason.
Okay, so the general concensus is to not do them?
Which Tae Kwon Do? I belonged to the World Tae Kwon Do Association (WTKDA) for years, and they’re a “no contact” organization. That is, blocks are full force, but punches and kicks are supposed to stop short of target. Mistakes happen, but there’s a lot less wear and tear on both knuckles and opponent.
We did knuckle pushups, and I have very normal knuckles after becoming a second-degree black belt.
From time to time, I have visited other organizations that practiced more contact. I found that the pain experienced was not confined to the knuckles.
Also (and I don’t know if you’re thinking this far ahead) the people in the organizations that did more contact tended to be younger and not looking at this as a lifetime sport.
Ex-boxer here:
Knuckle toughening is bullshit. The best thing you can do to protect your knuckles is to improve your grip. THe tighter your grip when you throw a punch, the less room there is for the vibrations at impact which are what cause the real damage.
The theory behind knuckle toughening and other bone toughening exercises is that repeated impacts or pressure will cause the bone to grow denser , and therefore stronger over time. This is a bad, bad misconception. It is true that if you severely abuse a bone, it becomes denser as it repairs itself, but this actually makes it weaker.
What happens is that the impacts slowly collapse the honeycomb structure of the bone tissue which then builds new tissue to repair itself, becoming denser. It’s heavier, and seems stronger. The impacts don’t hurt as much. You stop getting bone bruises and think you’re pretty tough.
What you’ve just done though is cut all the safety margin out of your bone tissue, all the real strength and resilience, and you’re much likelier to have a catastrophic injury, i.e. shatter the bone.
In boxing, it’s called “glass hands.” An idiot who works out on the bags without protection for a couple of years will get them.
Also if you have an accident in the ring and break your hand, you have to be very careful when you try to come back , or you’ll get them. The calcification makes them brittle, and they’ll often break repeatedly, though rarely in the same place.
You can build up a horny ridge of skin over your knuckles which will give them some protection, and you can strengthen the muscles and tissue that surround and encase your bones, but they are never so strong as before you start to abuse them.
I read about this probably ten years ago in a boxing magazine, discussing the results of a sports doctor’s research.
In other words the knuckle toughening is a myth.
So all I can really do is tighten my grip and hope for the best?
You can do a lot more than that. Protect your hands like any other body part that you value. When you throw a punch make sure that your wrist is straight so that the back of your hand is flat with it. Keep the thumb on the outside in betweeen your second and third fingers. Punch in a flat trajectory. Punch through your target, aiming six inches behind it. Keep your arm and shoulder relaxed, and better yet, only punch things that are much softer than your hands.
Great posts, scylla.
Since someone brought up the age aspect, I am now 41, and seem to be developing arthritis in every joint I broke throughout my life - most severely my left wrist (which also has some chips that should probably be removed one of these years) and my right big toe (which only hurts when I do something unusual like take a step.)
I broke my left wrist for the first time when I was in 4th grade, and the second time about 3 years ago, simply throwing a sloppy hook into a thai pad. My toe was busted when in high school - I exacerbated it by hyperextending it in grappling.
There are plenty of ways for injuries to sneak up on you in a contact activity like martial arts. No reason to go out of your way to seek injuries through doing something stupid like hitting objects to toughen your knucks.
But in general people aren’t softer than my hands…