Wrist/fingertip/first knuckle pushups: why bother with the pushup phase?

Before handstand 1, I always did exercises very similar to wrist pushups and fingertip pushups, except without the pushup phase: I'd keep my arms straight and just do the wrist portion. E.g. similar to the wrist-walk and fingertip-walk, except both hands go up and down at the same time. I feel like this is a much stricter exercise since you can not use momentum from the pushups to assist the wrists in the ascent phase.

Is there a reason to prefer the pushup variation over the no-pushup variation? 

Yes-- related, the original blog post on wrist pushups described working them up to straight-arm, movement only in the wrist.

I imagine this will be part of the coming wrist series in future Handstand volumes. Logical progression.

Zach Armijo said:

For that reason of assistance.

I see. I had assumed that the goal was to gradually minimize assistance. So this means that I should evaluate my mastery of the pushup exercises using the tempo that the athletes demonstrate in the videos, right? (As opposed to attempting to perform the exercises very slowly?)

If my memory is accurate, Coach mentioned somewhere that the slower you perform the wrist exercises, the more benefit you will get out of it

"If my memory is accurate, Coach mentioned somewhere that the slower you perform the wrist exercises, the more benefit you will get out of it "

That is the form cue for WP/PE2

I find the original question interesting and had not considered it.

There is no push-up with Wrist Rock to speak of, and the push-up for Wrist Push-ups involves the wrist through the range of the exercise.

For the others though - the wrist exercises do just appear to be added onto the end of your regular push-up

Ahhh yes, thank you Michael Tailor