You don’t have to be proficient at an exercise to reap benefits from it. The process of building the strength and musculoskeletal stability to hold a handstand in itself yields muscular development. Eight years of bodybuilding never came close to giving me the upper body I’ve always wanted, but functional exercise (handstands included) finally got me there. Functional exercise involves training muscle groups to work synergistically to complete a movement. This provokes higher caloric burn than isolation exercises, and many functional exercises engage the core, whether working the upper body or the lower body. I swapped bodybuilding for functional training because my ultimate goal is lifelong health, and functional exercise…