How does he do that?

I'm talking about Olympic silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko, the only man who can do what's called a Biellmann spin (lifting his free leg behind his back, and holding it over his head, fully extended, while spinning).

Here's how, according to an article in Sports Illustrated: His mother, Tatiana, wanted him to learn the move to improve his skating fortunes, so every night in the kitchen of their Volgograd home, she stood behind him and pulled his legs up in the Biellmann position, first the left one, then the right. He still frowns at the memory: "I told her, 'I'm a small boy. It's so much pain. I don't need this.' But we work every day and stretch hard. Now I say, 'Thank you, Mommy.' "