Demi Bagby is living proof that great things come in small packages.
The 18-year-old calisthenics athlete and social media star stands just shy of five feet tall, but she trains like a beast and pulls off stunts that most people would find absolutely terrifying. These days, Bagby is a source of inspiration for the more than 1.7 million followers she has on Instagram alone, but her current reality didn’t seem like an option when she broke her back in a cheerleading accident at just 14 years old.
The potentially life-changing event got her more motivated than ever, despite doctors’ warnings that she should take it easy.
“I’m just thinking, ‘You don’t know me, you don’t really know my body.’ And you can’t just take someone’s passion away from them,” Bagby told Muscle & Fitness. “That’s kind of what keeps me motivated: having someone telling me I couldn’t do something for the rest of my life.”
In the time since, she’s pushed her limits constantly—both in the gym and doing stunts on the street—to build insane functional fitness and create quality content for her social feeds. She’s always switching up the stunts she shares with her many fans, but one thing that never changes is her unfaltering, infectious positivity.
Whether she’s doing backflips on the beach or knocking out agility drills like a pro athlete, one thing’s for certain: She’s smiling from ear to ear. And while mean comments and arguments litter the posts on many influencers’ feeds, you’ll be hard-pressed to find them beside Bagby’s photos and videos. It’s an anomaly that she chalks up to the idea that you get what you give.
“There’s enough stuff going out there in the world that’s bad. I don’t want to be part of that, I want to be a light,” she explained. “If someone’s day’s bad, I want to make them smile, I want to make them have a better day.”
Considering the sheer number of people who follow her on Instagram and subscribe to her budding YouTube channel, we’re willing to bet she accomplishes that mission on the daily.
Below, get Bagby’s take on fitness, flips, and social media, as told to M&F.
It was kind of me posting my training, me having fun, me posting my videos to kind of keep a log of what I’ve been doing. It morphed into a big part of what I do, but it’s still a pretty similar concept. I think about a year ago is the point where I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do this full time, I’m going to make this serious.”
I like to train specific parts of my body each day. I’ll do an upper-body day, lower-body, and always add a little bit of cardio at the end. Everything that we do, for the most part, on Instagram that doesn’t count toward my training for the day, that’s just me messing around.
Training in a safe environment—at a gym, for example, with foam pits or something like that—to build the muscle memory and gain air awareness is important. If I were to go try to throw something outside on concrete that I’m not ready for, your body is like, “Nope,” and then you get hurt. Flips are definitely something to take more seriously, because in an instant you could be on the ground in a lot of pain.
It gets to the point where you don’t even think about it; it’s second nature. I think walking on my hands is probably easier for me than walking on my feet, but it just gets to that point and just that muscle memory.
It’s kind of having that mental confidence and being like, “Yeah, I’ve done it, that’s easy.” Because as soon as you start to psych yourself out, that’s when you start to get scared. But you’re like, “Oh yeah, I got this.” And then you only have to do it once and then you think, “I can do this for the rest of my life.” But that first time is the time where you need to be confident.
I want people to pick me up and be like, “Hey, we’re besties,” rather than just shaking hands and taking a photo with me that just looks like everybody else’s. Once while I was in Ireland, some guy asked to pick me up in the marriage pose where you’re in front of them, holding onto their neck. One person asked me to do that, and for the rest of the day, every single person in line asked me to do it. After, my entire feed was me looking like I got married 1,000 times.
Most of my photos at expos are people picking me up, or we’ll do piggyback rides. Sometimes it’s funny because I’ll even try to pick them up too, and I’m really small—4’11-and-a-half. But I want people to come up to me and feel confident like we’re best friends, and leave feeling happy and positive.
I’ll have a little dose of ice cream every once in a while, but I definitely eat a lot of protein and veggies. I like to keep it lower carb for the most part just because my body feels better doing so, but nothing too specific.
Online I see all these diet claims but I’ve kind of just gone on a whim and said, “Hey, just stick to the staples: protein, vegetables, keep it simple.” You know what’s healthy and what’s not. You’re not going to eat pizza every day.
I’ve never really had the urge to say anything negative about anyone. I just don’t understand how people do it. People say, “You get what you give,” and I don’t give that out. I think that my followers see that. I do get some negative comments every now and then, but they stick up for me.
They say, “Why would you say that about someone that’s trying to be positive?” Or they’ll give positive comebacks back to them and say, “Oh, well I hope your day gets better.” They’ll comment back, but it’s not mean. It’s weird because there’s a whole fight, but nothing said during the fight is mean—it sounds like a PG fight.
Having followers and things like that, those numbers, that’s just a part of my journey. I don’t really let that dictate who I am or how I view things, and I think people see that. You can hate, I don’t really care. It’s not going to affect me or how I live my life.
It’s mostly consistency, especially if it comes to having that balanced strength throughout your body. You really have to be consistent with training and the things that you don’t love so much. I’ll stretch at least 15 minutes before each of my workouts, no matter what I’m doing. And then I’ll stretch typically after as well. They’re kind of just standard, full-body training mobility exercises I love doing the splits and stuff just because I feel good doing it, but nothing too crazy.
Especially with flips, I know what’s going to happen, and then know the worst side of it. “OK, this is how I’d fall out of it if something bad were to happen.” Once you’re prepared for that, it’s not a surprise, so you can’t really get injured. That’s kind of the process. I mentally prepare myself for the worst and hope for the best so when I get to that point I know how to handle all situations.
I know my limits, especially with flips. So with these heels, for example, I was like, “I’ve done this a million times, a little heel’s not going to make it any different, just land a little bit more on the toes so you’re not falling backward, and you’re good.” And then I did it once, and I thought, “Oh, this is easy, I got this.”
That’s kind of the process. I mentally prepare myself for the worst and hope for the best, so when I get to that point, I know how to handle all situations. So nothing too crazy, [flipping in heels] was definitely a little sketchy, but I like to be safe. I don’t want to promote doing anything dangerous.
