In high school, David Thurin couldn’t touch his toes. Today? He can wrap his legs around his neck — and has a cult following of 12 million followers who watch him contort his body into a pretzel. He’s that guy — the one whose videos on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube make you slow your scroll and watch as he flips over himself while holding onto a tree branch, pulls his leg up parallel to his face and uses his ankle strength to hang from a bar by his feet. But while Thurin, who also writes The Stretch newsletter (which can now be read on Yahoo), creates thumb-stopping content, he says he has a greater purpose than to shock, awe and go viral.
Getting flexy
Behind Thurin’s flashy skills, there’s a 27-year-old focused on something far more relatable: using flexibility to make everyday life easier — like scratching that one hard-to-reach spot in the center of his back or simply getting up off the floor.
I’m a normal person, and I just did a bunch of training.
His own journey proves that mobility isn’t reserved for the naturally flexible. “When I first got into flexibility training, it took me two years to achieve a middle split,” he tells Yahoo. “I’m a normal person, and I just did a bunch of training.”
How he got here
“I’ve always been interested in fitness,” says Thurin, who initially went to community college to study theater. After a falling out with classmates, he enrolled in a Pilates program “just for fun,” not realizing it was a two-year teacher-training course. “I just never left,” he laughs.
Teaching Pilates taught him the fundamentals of movement, but he soon realized he had ideas that extended beyond the traditional curriculum. He began researching stretching and mobility on his own, exploring everything he could find. When he shared his first TikTok focused on flexibility in 2021, it garnered more than 8 million views.
Thurin’s goal is to make flexibility appealing, accessible and practical. He aims to draw people in with impressive feats, then show them how mobility can alleviate everyday pain points, from back stiffness to the long-term effects of prolonged sitting. “If I start a video by saying, ‘Here’s how to make life way easier,’ I can sell people on it,” he explains.
Flexibility changed his life
Despite his extreme skills, Thurin says the biggest payoff is how flexibility helps him function as a parent and as someone living with psoriatic arthritis.
“I can get down low to the ground to play with my daughter all day, and I won’t get sore,” he says. Even small daily tasks feel easier, like reaching into the back seat while driving to hand her a pacifier.
If you can’t move, you feel like something is taken from you.
His flexibility has also helped him counteract stiffness from psoriatic arthritis, which is an inflammatory condition that may cause fatigue, joint pain, stiffness and swelling. “It started attacking my joints, but I built such a large baseline of flexibility that the worst it did was make me a little closer to normal,” he says with a laugh. “There’s a great quote from Joseph Pilates: ‘You’re only as old as your spine is stiff.’ If you can’t move, you feel like something is taken from you.”
How to get started
If you’re new to mobility and unsure where to begin, Thurin recommends focusing on a deep squat.
“That’s ankle mobility, hip mobility and a little bit of lower back mobility,” he explains. “If you work on just that skill, you’ve already gotten a huge amount of benefit.” A deep squat is not only functional for everyday movement — it’s a built-in seat anywhere in the world.
What else can he teach you? As a fitness buff who still struggles with stretches, here’s how I’d suggest diving into Thurin’s world:
Most popular TikTok: Thurin’s most viewed TikTok video is about the difference between visible and usable glutes. Sure, shapely booties are nice, but I had never thought about the various ways that they can move, as he demonstrates here.
Most helpful TikTok (to me): This video that he posted in 2021 about correcting bad posture was an immediate watch for me. Not only do I dislike the look of being slouched over, but I’ve realized that, over time, poor posture has caused a lot of pain through my upper back and shoulders. Thurin to the rescue!
Instagram with the most engagement: The two that I found, with over 1 and 2 million likes, respectively, were both about hamstring flexibility — another big thing that I struggle with! I gotta get to work doing Thurin’s recommended stretches.
Newsletter I learned the most from: My old dance teacher told me I simply wasn’t born with the ability to do a split and had to accept it. According to Thurin, I shouldn’t have taken that as my answer — and still shouldn’t. As he wrote in his post titled “Born Flexible or Trained Flexible?” training flexibility, even as an adult, is possible than you think. It all starts with training
Check out Thurin’s latest stories here and sign up to get an email alert whenever he posts new tips and advice on Yahoo.
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