For those of you who don't know or remember Vicky Unus was an acrobat with Ringling Brothers in the 1960's and '70's who performed an act where, among other amazing feats, she held on to the end of a rope with her powerful right arm and pivoted her body up and around her shoulder for usually 100 revolutions! Her record for these is 253!!

BHanson wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2009 at 3:41am:


I don't think that picture is of Vicky Unus. That's a fbb armwrestling a guy in the 80's or early 90's, and I know I've seen the video before.

You're right. That is a picture of Melissa Coates.  The story about Vicky Unus is most likely true.  It was found on her high school website where one of the men she defeated armwrestling  commented on the pain he felt in his arm afterwards.

Under "classmates.com" look for Sarasota High School.  Vicky's was the class of 1962.

I didn't lie about it.  The picture was on the Classmates Sarasota H.S. website and described as being Vicky Unus armwrestling a classmate. The picture of the arm looked believable as being Vicky's but the hair color and what I could see of the face didn't look quite right.

BHanson wrote on Nov 4^th, 2009 at 3:16pm:


...I appreciate the interesting read about Vicky Unus. For the old timers like myself, the golden era of female circus performers was our only TRUE link to muscular and strong women back then. Struppi Hanneford, AKA Princess Tajana, was my personal favorite. I'd have given a king's ransom to see her actually flex back then. In the pic you provided of Vicky, you can only imagine the strength it takes to stay in that one arm flexed position.

BHanson wrote on Nov 6^th, 2009 at 6:59pm:


...Yes, the strength developed by the circus women of the past was staggering, BHansen. Just curious, is it the strength or the muscular development of these women that interests you the most? To me it has always been the muscles more than the strength. Don't get me wrong, I most definitely appreciate the strength as well.

I posted this on these boards long ago but as a young boy in Tampa Florida, I was enjoying a traveling circus show under the big top one night with my parents. To my right and one row in fromt of me was a blonde female whom I gathered from the excitement around her, was a performer. I don't recall whether she performed that night or was just in attendance. What I do recall as if it were yesterday was the commotion that her developed arms caused among the men around her and what transpired next. While proudly showing off by flexing for the guys she glanced back at me and my little bewildered face. I don't know how she knew it but she must have known how badly I wanted to be a part the festivities because she leaned back toward me and flexed her big right arm and asked me if I wanted to feel her muscle. I took hold of what was the biggest muscle I had ever seen and it belonged to a woman. I marveled at the incredible size and hardness. She not only let me squeeze every inch of that concrete mound but she even relaxed and retensed it several times for my approval before my mom finally slapped at my hand and told me to leave her alone. She assured my mom that it was okay...boy was it EVER!!!!! From that day forward, I looked at the circus women as almost super heroes in my eyes. Even before that night, I was already completely enamored by muscles on girls but this muscular and beautiful blonde was like a goddess to me. Sadly I don't recall her name