Muscles of the shoulder can be divided into superficial and deep layers.

The
main superficial muscle of the shoulder is the well-known deltoid muscle. This
large muscle is a bit like an upside down triangle extending both anteriorly and
posteriorly. Its wide flat base attaches at the shoulder with its apex descending
to attach to the arm. The anatomists who discovered this muscle must have
known their Greek alphabet very well as they named this muscle after the
triangular-shaped Greek letter delta.

If we were to peel back the deltoid muscle, we would find a group of smaller
but still very important muscles lying just beneath. These four deep muscles of
the shoulder are known as the rotator cuff muscles. You may be wondering why
these muscles are grouped together as the rotator cuff muscles. The term
rotator comes from the rotational movement these muscles elicit when they
contract whereas cuff originates from their positioning and insertion as they
extend from the scapula and ‘cuff’ the head of the humerus.

The rotator cuff muscles are also sometimes known as SITS muscles. SITS is a
handy little mnemonic that can help you remember the rotator cuff muscles
where S stands for supraspinatus, I for infraspinatus, T for teres minor, and the
final S for subscapularis. The rotator cuff muscles all extend to insert onto the
head of the humerus, but it is their origins that reveal their differences. Let's
take a quick look at these muscles individually.

Three of the rotator cuff muscles are located on the posterior aspect of the
scapula. The first of these muscles is the supraspinatus muscle. This muscle
sits on the posterior surface of the scapula within a hollow known as the
supraspinous fossa. This attachment is where the supraspinatus gets its name.
Just below the supraspinatus, we meet the infraspinatus muscle, sitting in the
infraspinous fossa. Are you starting to see the pattern here? This is a triangular
muscle with a wide base and a narrow apex. The last rotator cuff muscle on the
posterior surface of the scapula is the teres minor muscle. The teres minor is
smaller than both the supraspinatus and infraspinatus muscles and sits inferior
to both at the lateral border of the scapula.

In order to see the final rotator cuff muscle, we need to flip the scapula around
so that we can view its anterior surface. Here we find the subscapularis muscle
sitting in the subscapular fossa, hence, its name. This muscle is the largest of
the rotator cuff muscles and covers essentially the whole anterior surface of
the scapula.

You may have noticed that there is another muscle on the posterior surface of
the scapula that we haven't mentioned yet. Sitting just inferior to the teres
minor muscle, we meet the teres major muscle. Teres major is one of the deep
muscles of the shoulder. It inserts a little lower on the shaft of the humerus
and, therefore, does not contribute to the tendinous rotator cuff.

Let's take a look at the movements that occur when some of the main muscles
of the shoulder contract.

The large deltoid muscle is the major abductor of the arm at the shoulder joint.
It moves the arm away from the midline of the body. The deep muscles of the
shoulder – the rotator cuff muscle and the teres major – are responsible for its
rotational movements. They work together to internally and externally rotate
the arm at the shoulder joint.

Let's now travel down and take a look at the main muscles of the arm.

Muscles of the arm and forearm can be divided into an anterior and a posterior
group. Muscles of the anterior compartment of the arm include the biceps
brachii, the coracobrachialis, and the brachialis muscles. The main muscle of
the posterior compartment of the arm is the triceps brachii. Another small
muscle that can be considered both the muscle of the arm and the forearm is
the anconeus muscle; however, we'll not discuss it further in this tutorial as
this muscle is often morphologically and functionally classed as a continuation
of the triceps. If you want to find out more about the anconeus muscle and the
other muscles of the arm, feel free to check out our more in-depth videos on the
muscles of the arm.

Okay, let's now take a look at the muscles of the anterior arm in a little more
detail.

The biceps brachii muscle is one of the major muscles of the arm. Its name
comes from the Latin bi- meaning two and caput- meaning head. It has a long
head and a short head. The biceps brachii muscle extends over two joints – the
shoulder joint and the elbow joint – meaning that it contributes to movement at
both of them.

The coracobrachialis muscle is a small muscle that lies beneath the biceps
brachii. Its name is derived from its origin and location. Coraco- indicates this
muscle's origin at the coracoid process of the scapula while brachialis
indicates that it is located within the brachial or arm region. This muscle only
acts on the shoulder joint.

A final muscle in the anterior compartment of the arm is the brachialis muscle.
This muscle sits tucked behind the lower portion of the biceps brachii muscle
and can be quite hard to find. The brachialis muscle is a large and powerful
muscle that acts only on the elbow joint. It is the main and most powerful flexor
of the forearm at the elbow.

Now that we are familiar with the muscles of the anterior compartment of the
arm, let's take a quick look at the posterior compartment.

The triceps brachii muscle is the main muscle of the posterior compartment. As
we saw with the biceps brachii which is a two-headed muscle, the triceps
brachii is given its name because it has three heads. Here we can see the long
head and the lateral head, and peeking through, we can just about make the
medial head. The triceps brachii muscle is a powerful muscle that acts at both
the shoulder and elbow joints.

Now that we've had a look at the anterior and posterior muscles of the arm,
let's see how they act on the shoulder and elbow joint as they contract.

Muscles of the anterior compartment of the arm are predominantly flexors.

Depending on their origin, these three muscles will either flex the arm at the
shoulder or flex the forearm at the elbow. Some muscles will also contribute to
other movements such as adduction of the arm and supination of the forearm.
The movement that occurs in the posterior arm is quite simple. The triceps
brachii muscle extends the arm and forearm posteriorly at the shoulder and
elbow joints.

So now that we've had a look at the muscles of the arm, let's move distally to
take a look at the muscles of the forearm – the region between the elbow and
the wrist.

Muscles of the forearm are a little bit more complex. Just like the arm, the
muscles of the forearm are divided into anterior and posterior compartments as
well as superficial and deep regions within each compartment. Let's begin by
taking a look at some of the superficial muscles of the anterior region of the
forearm first, starting off with the pronator teres.

The pronator teres muscle is one of the most superficial muscles of the
forearm. It has two heads – a humeral and ulnar head. We can only see the
humeral head here as the ulnar head is hidden under the muscle belly. Unlike
most muscles of the forearm, it does not travel down to reach the hand, but
instead, inserts onto the radius of the forearm.

Lying just medial and slightly posterior to the pronator teres muscle is the
flexor carpi radialis muscle. The names of this muscle give us an idea of where
it's headed. Carpi in Latin refers to the bones of the hand while radialis
indicates the radial or lateral aspect of the hand, therefore, by this muscle's
name, we can presume that flexor carpi radialis is heading down to the lateral
metacarpal bones.

This muscle travels down to insert onto the ligamentous structures of the palm
of the hand. The palmaris longus muscle is extremely variable, and in fact, not
everybody has it. You might be able to find this muscle's tendon if you flex your
hand at the wrist joint. If you have this muscle, you should be able to spot three
tendons on the anterior surface of the wrist. If it's absent, you'll only see two
tendons – the flexor carpi radialis and ulnaris tendons.

The flexor carpi ulnaris muscle lies just medial to the palmaris longus muscle.
Much like the flexor carpi radialis muscle, this muscle also inserts at the
metacarpal bones of the hand but at the ulnar or medial aspect.

The last muscle of the superficial layer that we're going to look at today is the
flexor digitorum superficialis muscle. This muscle is the deepest of all the
superficial muscles of the anterior compartment and lies just behind the flexor
carpi ulnaris and radialis muscles. It is a large muscle with two heads.

Let's now move on to the deep compartment of the anterior arm.

Here we meet the flexor pollicis longus and the flexor digitorum profundus
muscles. These muscles are quite small and their actions weak, so they are not
considered main flexors by many sources. However, we do cover them in detail
in our other videos.

The final muscle that we will look at in the anterior deep layer is the pronator
quadratus muscle. It is the deepest muscle of the anterior forearm and sits next
to the wrist. It stretches between the distal end of the radius and ulna hidden
underneath layers of deep and superficial muscles. Quadratus in Latin means
square which is reflected in the shape of the muscle.

Before we move on to the posterior muscles, let's take a quick look at some of
the movements of the muscles of the anterior forearm.

The muscles of the anterior forearm are predominantly all flexors as their
names suggest. Most of the superficial muscles flex the forearm at the elbow
joint, hand at the wrist, and digits at the metacarpophalangeal and
interphalangeal joints.

Deep muscles will also aid in flexing the hand and digits, but do not act on the
elbow joint. Muscles positioned medially or laterally such as flexor carpi ulnaris
and flexor carpi radialis will also contribute to abduction and adduction of the
hand at the wrist. The pronator teres and pronator quadratus muscles work
together to produce a twisting motion known as pronation.

So now we're finished with the anterior group of the forearm, let's flip that arm
around and take a look at some of the main muscles of the posterior forearm.

Just like the anterior forearm, the muscles of the posterior forearm are also
divided into superficial and deep regions. Muscles within this compartment are
known as the extensor muscles as this is the main action they perform. Let's
begin by taking a look at the six muscles of the superficial layer first.

The most superficial muscle of the posterior forearm is the brachioradialis

muscle. This muscle can sometimes be confused for a muscle of the anterior
compartment due to its positioning. It sits on the lateral aspect of the forearm
and is best identified from the anterior view. It even behaves like a muscle of
the anterior compartment as it flexes the forearm at the elbow. It is, however,
considered to be a muscle of the posterior compartment as it is innervated by
the radial nerve, just like its fellow posterior muscles.

Slightly inferior to the brachioradialis muscle, we meet the extensor carpi

radialis longus muscle. Phew! That was quite a mouthful. As this muscle's name
suggests, it is located to the radial or lateral aspect of the posterior forearm.
The longus in the name might also give you a clue that this muscle has a
shorter counterpart, and that is the extensor carpi radialis brevis, which is
almost completely hidden by the more superficial longus.

You might notice that the three muscles we just mentioned all contain radial in
their names signifying their location along the radius. These three muscles are
the most lateral muscles of the forearm and are collectively known as radial
muscles.

At the mid-portion of the posterior forearm just medial to the extensor carpi
radialis longus, we find the extensor digitorum muscle. This muscle is similar to
the flexor digitorum muscles of the anterior forearm. It lies centrally, but
instead of inserting onto the palmar surface of the hand, it travels on the back
or dorsal surface to insert onto the digits.

Just medial to the extensor digitorum muscle is the extensor digiti minimi
muscle. This muscle travels right down to the little finger.

The last muscle of the superficial compartment is the extensor carpi ulnaris
muscle. Much like the extensor carpi radialis longus muscle, the name of this
muscle also gives us a vague idea of where it is headed – carpi meaning the
carpal bones of the hand and ulnaris indicates the ulnar side or the medial
aspect of the forearm along which it travels. This muscle sits just medial to the
extensor digitorum muscle along the length of the forearm.

We've made it all the way to the deep layer of the posterior forearm. Generally,
these muscles are not considered main muscles of the upper limb as they are
smaller and their actions are weaker, so we will only quickly run through them.
There are six muscles altogether – the extensor pollicis longus muscle and
brevis, the abductor pollicis longus, the extensor indicis, and the supinator
muscle, which is the deepest muscle of the posterior forearm. If you want to
find out more about the muscles of the posterior forearm, we have a whole
video dedicated to them.

Let's pause here to take a minute to look at the movements created by the
muscles of the posterior forearm.

As you may have guessed by their names, muscles of the posterior forearm are
predominantly extensors. Most of the superficial muscles extend the hand at
the wrist joint, and the digits at the metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal
joints. The deep muscles extend the hand at the wrist joint and the digits at the
metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal joints, but do not act at the elbow
joint. Muscles positioned medially or laterally, such as extensor carpi radialis
longus and extensor carpi ulnaris, will also contribute to the abduction and
adduction of the hand at the wrist.

There's one unique muscle, however, and that's the supinator muscle. The
supinator muscle produces supination of the forearm and wrist at the radioulnar
joints. This movement can be hard to visualize so why don't you try producing
these movements yourself.

Okay, so we're nearly there and we've reached our last destination which is the
hand.

Muscles of the hand can be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic muscles.
Intrinsic muscles are the muscles that originate and insert within the hand
while extrinsic muscles are the muscles that originate within the arm or the
forearm and insert onto the palmar and dorsal surfaces of the hand and digits.
We already discussed the extrinsic muscles of the hand when we talked about
the muscles of the forearm, so now let's focus on the intrinsic muscles.

As with the arm and forearm, intrinsic muscles of the hand are also divided into
groups of muscles. The intrinsic muscles of the hands are divided into five
different groups – the dorsal and palmar interossei, the lumbricals, the
hypothenar muscles, and the thenar muscles. Let's begin with the dorsal
interossei.
Notice we are now looking at a dorsal view of the hand, otherwise, known as
the back of the hand. The dorsal interossei muscles are four short muscles
between the metacarpal bones. The dorsal interossei are numbered one to four
starting at the thumb. The palmar interossei come next, and as you can see, we
have flipped the hand around again and now we are looking at the palm of the
hand. The palmar interossei are three muscles located between the metacarpal
bones. These muscles can also be numbered one to three. The third digit does
not have an associated palmar interosseous muscle.

Working our way to the next group of muscles, we meet the lumbricals. They
are four short hand muscles located between the digits of the hand deep in the
palmar fascia. The lumbricals actually arise from the tendons of one of the
extrinsic muscles of the hand as we can see here.

Moving on, we come to the hypothenar muscle group. This group is made up of
four small muscles, all situated on the medial aspect of the palm at the base of
the little finger. The four hypothenar muscles are the abductor digiti minimi, the
flexor digiti minimi, the opponens digiti minimi, and finally, the palmaris brevis
muscle. If you take a look at the palm of your hand, you might actually be able
to see an outline of this muscle group at the base of your little finger. This
fleshy prominence is the hypothenar eminence, which marks the surface
anatomy of these muscles.

We're on the home stretch here. We've arrived at the final muscle group of the
hand – the thenar muscles. The thenar muscles are located on the lateral
aspect of the palm towards the base of the thumb. They form a fleshy muscle
pad in this area known as the thenar eminence. The thenar muscle group also
comprises four muscles. The thenar muscles are the abductor pollicis brevis,
the adductor pollicis, the flexor pollicis brevis, and the opponens pollicis. Do
you recognize the Latin word pollicis? That's right! All these muscles act on the
thumb.

The intrinsic muscles of the hand work together to create fine motor
movements. The lumbricals and interossei work together to abduct, adduct,
flex, and extend the fingers, while the thenar and hypothenar muscles abduct,
adduct, flex, extend, and rotate the thumb and the little finger.

Now that we've had a look at all the main muscles of the upper limb and their
associated movements, let's take a look at some of the muscles we saw today
from a clinical perspective.

We learned earlier about the rotator cuff muscle group and how these four
muscles were important in rotating and stabilizing the shoulder. If you are a
gym buff or frequently play sports, you're probably familiar with the term rotator
cuff injury. There are three main types of rotator cuff injuries – tendinitis,
bursitis, and strains. Today, we're going to be focusing on strains.

A rotator cuff strain occurs when the tendons of the rotator cuff muscles
become overstretched or torn. Symptoms of the rotator cuff strain include pain
on lifting or rotating the arm, swelling around the shoulder, and shoulder joint
stiffness. Strains are usually caused by overuse of the rotator cuff or may occur
from acute trauma to the shoulder joint.

Treatment of a rotator cuff sprain includes rest, ice, and nonsteroidal anti-
inflammatory drugs to reduce inflammation. Strengthening exercises may also
be used to restore active function and strength to the tendon. On complete
rupture of the tendon, surgical intervention may be necessary. Daily shoulder
stretches can aid in increasing flexibility and strength of the shoulder joint.
When stretching, it is important to strengthen the muscles around the shoulder
blade and posterior shoulder specifically to optimize the muscle balance of the
rotator cuff.

We did it! We made it to the end. Before we finish up though, I'm going to
quickly summarize what we learnt today.

We started today's tutorial by looking at the main muscles of the shoulder. We

learnt about the large deltoid muscle and the rotator cuff muscles which
include the supraspinatus and infraspinatus, the teres minor, and the
subscapularis muscles. Finally, we identified the teres major muscle. We
explored how these muscles assist in creating movements of abduction,
adduction, and internal and external rotation of the arm at the shoulder.

We then moved distally to the arm. The main muscles of the arm were grouped
into anterior and posterior groups. Muscles of the anterior group consisted of
the biceps brachii, the coracobrachialis, and brachialis muscles. We identified
the anterior group to be predominantly flexors of the arm and forearm. The main
muscle of the posterior region was the triceps brachii muscle and we learned
that its main function was extension.

The forearm came next. The main superficial muscles of the anterior forearm
that we had a look at today included the pronator teres, the flexor carpi
radialis, the palmaris longus, the flexor carpi ulnaris, and the flexor digitorum
superficialis muscles. The main muscles of the deep anterior forearm included
the flexor pollicis longus, the flexor digitorum profundus, and the pronator
quadratus muscles. Muscles of the superficial and deep compartment of the
anterior forearm were seen to be predominantly flexors of the forearm, hand,
and fingers.
Then we met the superficial and deep posterior forearm muscles. Some of the
main superficial muscles of the posterior forearm included the brachioradialis
muscle, the extensor carpi radialis longus muscle, the extensor digitorum, and
the extensor carpi ulnaris. The main muscles of the deep posterior forearm
include the extensor pollicis longus muscle, the extensor indicis, and the
supinator muscle. We learnt that the main action of the posterior muscles of the
forearm was to extend the forearm, hand, and fingers.

Finally, we came to the hand. We grouped all those little muscles into five
separate groups and explored how each group created fine motor movements
of the hand. We divided the muscles of the hand into the dorsal interossei, the
palmar interossei, the lumbricals, the hypothenar muscle group, and the thenar
muscle group. We learned that the muscles of the hypothenar group included
the abductor digiti minimi, the flexor digiti minimi, the opponens digiti minimi,
and the palmaris brevis muscles. The thenar muscle group included the
abductor pollicis brevis, the adductor pollicis, the flexor pollicis brevis, and the
opponens pollicis muscles.

Once we looked at all the main muscles of the upper limb and their associated
actions, we then had a quick look at some clinical notes on rotator cuff injury.
We learned about a strain injury to the rotator cuff tendon and identified the
symptoms, causes, and treatment regime for this injury depending on the
severity of the injury.

We’re now looking at an image of our anatomical male, and he has, as you can
now see, the quadriceps femoris muscle highlighted in green overlaying his
lower extremity, and this muscle is most frequently used when running, as we
can see in this image.

Okay, now that we’re finished defining what is a muscle and what is the lower
extremity, I want to talk about some divisions of the lower extremity.

So, there’s several regions that we’re going to be talking about today and we’re
going to start from top to bottom as we always do – so superior to inferior – and
we’re going to start by looking at the muscles of the hip region, which is
located in this green section on our right just here, followed by the muscles of
the thigh, followed by the muscles of the leg, and finally, followed by the
muscles of the foot, which is highlighted in green down the bottom.
So as we mentioned, we’re going to start with the muscles of the hip region.
And the muscles in this area can be divided into two groups – the first one being
the hip flexors and the muscles of the outer hip – and we’re going to go through
these now, of course, in that order.

So let’s, of course, begin with the hip flexor muscles, and the first muscle that
we want to talk about today is the iliopsoas muscle, which you can see
highlighted in green on our image on the right. So, the iliopsoas muscle is a
muscle of the inner hip and it actually comprises of two muscles which you can
kind of see in this image. So, firstly, there’s the psoas major which you can see
highlighted in green, and secondly, the iliacus muscle which you can now see
highlighted in green.

Now, I just want to bring this image to the center a little bit more just to
demonstrate something to you. So, obviously, you can see that the iliacus
muscle and the psoas muscle have different origin points, but they both have
the same insertion point which you can see in the lower half of the image, and
basically, the two parts of the iliopsoas muscle unites just below the inguinal
ligament which I’m demonstrating by my blue line just here, and the circle is
just pointing out the common insertion of this muscle.

Now, let’s just come back to our image of the iliopsoas muscle altogether. Let’s
talk a little bit about its innervation. So, the iliopsoas muscle is innervated by
the femoral nerve as well as direct branches of the lumbar plexus. And in terms
of its function, it is the strongest flexor of the hip joint which makes it a really
important muscle for walking – just like our woman walking across the bottom
of our image just here. This iliopsoas muscle also helps to stabilize the pelvis,
and it facilitates the lateral rotation of the thigh. It also supports the
straightening of the upper body in the supine position and straightens the body
during sit-ups.

Okay, now, let’s move on to talk about the muscles of the outer hip, and the
first muscle I want to talk about is the gluteus maximus muscle which you can
see in green on our right, and as you can see, it’s a pretty large muscle which
takes up the majority of the buttock.

The gluteus maximus muscle is also the largest and most superficial muscle of
the three gluteal muscles – and we’ll talk a little bit more about the gluteal
muscles a little bit later in this tutorial. And another interesting thing about the
gluteus maximus muscle is that it helps form the gluteal sulcus which you can
see in this image down here, although it doesn’t actually represent the lower
margin of the muscle but instead being formed as a result of an arcuate
enhancement of the fascia. In other words, it’s created by the fascia and not by
the muscle.
Let’s briefly talk about its function, and as you can see, the upper fibers of the
gluteus maximus muscle, when contracted, cause an abduction at the hip
whereas the lower fibers of the muscle cause adduction of the hip – and you
can see the arrow pointing out the direction of adduction. When they’re working
together, the two muscles form a really powerful extensor and they help to
rotate the hip outwardly. And in addition to these, the gluteus maximus muscle
also stabilizes the hip in the sagittal and coronal planes – and you can see both
of those planes in our little blue boxes down the bottom.

The next muscle we want to talk about in this region is the gluteus medius
muscle which you can see in green on our right, and this is the second of the
three gluteal muscles that we talked about a little bit earlier, and this muscle
forms the middle layer of those three muscles. It’s also one of the major
internal rotators of the hip. So talking about its function, its anterior fibers, as
you can see highlighted in blue on our right, facilitates flexion and internal
rotation, and that dotted line is just to indicate the movement of the hip going
into the screen – so it’s turning inwards, not outwards – and the posterior fibers
of this muscle help facilitate extension and external rotation of the hip.

The entire muscle when it works together helps with the abduction of the hip –
so, movement outwards away from the midline of the body – and, of course, it
helps with the stabilization of the pelvis in the coronal plane.

The most deeply located and the smallest of the three gluteal muscles is the
gluteus minimus muscle – and you can see that highlighted in green on our
right. And the function of this muscle is similar to that of the gluteus medius
muscle in that contraction of the anterior fibers results in flexion and internal
rotation whereas the contraction of the posterior fibers of this muscle results in
extension and external rotation. The entire muscle when it works together
abducts the hip and it also stabilizes the pelvis in the coronal plane.

Let’s move on now to talk about the piriformis muscle, which is another muscle
of the outer hip and an external rotator of the hip. As you can see, it’s a
stabilizer of the hip and it also helps to facilitate abduction, extension, and
external rotation of the hip joint.

Moving on now to the tensor fasciae latae muscle. As you can see, the tensor
fasciae latae is a thin muscle of the gluteal region – and you can see how thin it
is on this image – and it’s superficially located and it can be easily palpated
especially in athletes who engage and strengthen the hip muscles. As its name
suggests, the tensor fasciae latae muscles tenses or tightens the fascia lata
and it also sustains tension of the iliotibial tract. At the hip joint, contraction of
the tensor fasciae latae muscle results in abduction, flexion, and internal
rotation of the thigh.
Let’s move on now to a different set of muscles – the muscles of the anterior
thigh – and as you can see, the thigh can be divided into the anterior
compartment and posterior compartment, and the hip adductors. And the first
muscle we want to talk about in the muscles of the anterior compartment of
the thigh is a large four-headed muscle known as the quadriceps femoris – and
you can see it highlighted on our image and we talked about it earlier in the
introduction to this tutorial.

So as you can see, it’s a very large muscle and it makes up the bulk of the
anterior thigh almost completely covering the femur, and it’s one of the
strongest muscles of the human body. You probably have heard of it when we
talk about the quads. So quadriceps in running or when you do the stretch
where you bend your knee and hold your foot against your buttocks – that’s the
big muscle that we’re stretching at the front of the leg just here.

So, the quadriceps femoris muscle, as indicated by its name, has four muscles
and these are the rectus femoris muscle, the vastus medialis muscle, the
vastus intermedius muscle, and the vastus lateralis muscle. We’re not going to
talk through each of these. Instead, we’re going to talk about the quadriceps
femoris muscle’s function as a whole, and we should note that quadriceps
femoris is important as it’s the only extensor of the knee joint, and another
function of the quadriceps femoris is to facilitate hip flexion.

The other muscle of the anterior thigh is the sartorius muscle. As you can see,
it’s a long thin, superficially-running muscle. And in this image, we can see the
sartorius muscle isolated and the hip flexed and the knee extended so that we
can see some of its functions a little bit more clearly. So, at the hip joint, the
sartorius muscle facilitates flexion, abduction and external rotation while at the
knee joint, the muscle facilitates flexion and internal rotation.

Let’s now look at the posterior thigh muscles. Now, the main muscle of the
posterior thigh – again, you might have heard of through if you run or if you
exercise – there’s a major group of muscles called the hamstring muscles, and
there are three of these – the biceps femoris which you can see dotted out in
blue just here, the semimembranosus, and the semitendinosus muscle. And
let’s talk about each of these individually.

And as we mentioned, the first one of these is called the biceps femoris muscle,
and the biceps femoris as you can tell by the name is a two-headed muscle and
the biceps femoris has a long head and a short head.

So, we’re just going to bring in this other image where we can see the left thigh
from a lateral view and the biceps femoris, of course, is highlighted in green, so
that means that our anterior is over here and our posterior is over here on the
right. We’re looking in this image because we can see that at the hip joint, the
long head of the biceps femoris muscle extends the hip and helps to stabilize
the pelvis in the sagittal plane whereas at the knee joint, the entire muscle
facilitates flexion and external rotation.

Now let’s have a look at our second hamstring muscle, and the second
hamstring muscle is the semimembranosus – so-called because it has a flat,
membranous shape. And the muscle is located medially in the posterior
compartment of the thigh, as you can see in the image. So let’s come back to
our lateral view of the pelvis and the thigh where we can see the
semimembranosus muscle highlighted in green. And the semimembranosus
muscle extends the hip and stabilizes the pelvis in the sagittal plane. In
addition, it also facilitates flexion and internal rotation at the knee joint.

Okay, coming back to our base image of the thigh from the posterior view, we
can see the semitendinosus muscle highlighted in green, which is our last
muscle of the hamstrings. And the semitendinosus muscle extends the thigh
and stabilizes the pelvis in the sagittal plane as well as facilitating flexion and
internal rotation of the knee joint.

Alright, let’s move on now to the hip adductors. And the hip adductor muscles
are part of the musculature of the inner thigh, and the first of these muscles
that we’re going to be talking about is called the pectineus muscle, which we
can see just here on our right. And you can see from the image that it’s a flat
muscle and it helps to stabilize the pelvis in a coronal plane as well as the
sagittal plane and this muscle also facilitates the adduction, the external
rotation, and slight flexion of the hip joint when it contracts.

Let’s move on now to the adductor magnus muscle and, as you can tell from the
name – magnus – it’s a very large muscle and is in fact one of the largest
muscles in the human body. The adductor magnus muscle facilitates adduction,
external rotation, and the extension of the hip joint, and it also helps to
stabilize the pelvis in the coronal plane. The adductor longus muscle is also a
relatively large muscle as you can see on the image on the right, and this
muscle facilitates both adduction and flexion of the hip joint as well as
stabilizing the pelvis in both the sagittal and coronal planes.

So lying deep to the adductor longus muscle is the short adductor brevis
muscle – and you can, of course, see that on our right highlighted in green – and
contraction of this muscle facilitates the adduction and flexion of the hip joint.
It also helps stabilize the pelvis in the coronal and sagittal planes.

Let’s move on now to another muscle that’s located in our leg region and is also
considered a hip adductor muscle, and this muscle that you can see on the
right in green is the gracilis muscle. And the gracilis muscle is the most
superficial and most medial muscle of this group and it facilitates the adduction
and flexion at the hip joint. In addition to that, it also facilitates flexion and
internal rotation at the knee joint.

Alright, now let’s move down to our region of the leg. And like our previous
regions, the leg can be divided into several compartments – the anterior
compartment, the lateral compartment, and the posterior compartment. And
like the compartments of the thigh, the muscles within each compartment have
related functions, so listen out for those as we come to them.

Alright beginning with the muscles of the anterior compartment of the leg, do
note that these muscles are all associated with dorsiflexion of the foot as well
as its inversion or eversion, so just keep that in mind as we talk through them.
And let’s begin with a muscle known as the tibialis anterior muscle, which you
can see highlighted in green on the right and, of course, we’re looking at an
anterior view of the right leg.

So I’m just bringing in another image where the tibialis anterior muscle is
isolated so that you can see the function of it a little bit more clearly. So the
tibialis anterior facilitates the dorsiflexion of the talocrural joint and it also
helps with the inversion or supination of the foot at the subtalar joint. And the
tibialis anterior muscle is also the leading muscle for the neuromuscular
pathway to the ankle. Now, what does that mean? That basically means that
there’s some major nerves and vessels that follow the tibialis anterior from the
knee to the foot, and I’ve drawn in for you in red the anterior tibial artery as well
as the vein and we also have a deep fibular nerve.

The extensor digitorum longus muscle is responsible for the dorsiflexion of the
foot at the talocrural joint or the ankle joint. It also extends the lateral four toes
at the metatarsophalangeal and interphalangeal joints, and in this image, we
can see this muscle extending or pulling the toes towards the leg. The extensor
digitorum longus also assists in eversion or pronation of the foot turning the
sole of the foot away from the midline of the body.

Let's move on now to the extensor hallucis longus muscle which, as we can
guess, acts on the big toe. Like the extensor digitorum longus, the extensor
hallucis longus is also responsible for the dorsiflexion of the foot at the
talocrural joint and it extends the big toe at the metatarsophalangeal and
interphalangeal joints which you can see in this image.

Okay, let’s move on and talk about the muscles of the lateral compartment of
the leg, and again, we’re looking at an anterior view of our right leg, which
means that the green muscle is on our lateral aspect of the leg and that green
muscle is the peroneus longus muscle. And this muscle is also sometimes
called the fibularis longus muscle. And again, we’re just bringing in an image
that shows you some of the functions of the peroneus longus muscle. And the
peroneus longus muscle is involved in plantarflexion of the foot in the talocrural
joint as demonstrated by our little image down the bottom.

The peroneus longus muscle is also involved in pronation or eversion of the foot
at the subtalar joint and the peroneus longus muscle also supports the
transverse arch of the foot.

Another muscle with the name peroneus is the peroneus brevis muscle, which
is also known as the fibularis brevis muscle, and again bringing in our lovely
image demonstrating the functions of the peroneus brevis muscle, we can see
that it’s involved with plantarflexion as well as pronation of the foot.

Okay, let’s move on now to the muscles of the posterior compartment of the
leg. And the first muscle that I want to talk about is a sort of a combination
muscle known as the triceps surae muscle. And the triceps surae is made up of
two muscles – the gastrocnemius which we can see on the right in green as
well as soleus which we can now see in green – and these two muscles are
essentially a pair of muscles that make up the calf.

So, the gastrocnemius muscle is a bipennate muscle which we mentioned

before of the posterior leg and that has two heads – like our two heads just here
– and I’m going to bring in this posteromedial view so that we can have a look
at the muscle a little bit more clearly. And in terms of its function, it helps with
the plantarflexion of the foot as well as flexion of the knee joint.

Moving on to the soleus muscle, the soleus muscle is as we said the other
muscle that makes up the triceps surae muscle and we’re just putting a
transparent copy of our gastrocnemius over the top just here. and, again,
looking at its posteromedial view, we can see that it’s involved – oh, and this is
the point where I wanted to talk about the ankle joint because we can see it a
little bit more clearly.

So as we mentioned, the soleus along with the gastrocnemius facilitates

plantarflexion at the talocrural joint which is this point about here which is
between the talus bone and the base of the tibia and the fibula, and, of course,
we also call this the ankle joint. It also facilitates supination at the subtalar
joint and I just want to circle this subtalar joint for you now. As you can see, it
is the joint that is between the talus and the calcaneus.

Moving on to our plantaris muscle, which is a superficial muscle of the leg, and
as you can see, it’s running superficially over the top of the soleus muscle. And
in addition to plantarflexion of the foot, the plantaris muscle may also act to
prevent the compression of muscles in the posterior leg during knee flexion.

Alright, let’s move on now to the tibialis posterior muscle. And the tibialis
posterior muscle is another muscle of the leg. It’s one of the deep muscles of
the posterior compartment of the leg; the other two muscles – the soleus and
the gastrocnemius – being part of the superficial muscles of the posterior
compartment of the leg. The tibialis posterior is part of the deep muscles. And
as you can see in this posteromedial view, it’s very deep and it even lies in
between the fibula and the tibia bones, and its function is to assist in
plantarflexion at the talocrural joint or our ankle joint as we mentioned before,
and also help with supination of the foot at the subtalar joint.

Let’s move on now to the flexor digitorum longus muscle. And as you can see,
the flexor digitorum longus muscle is a deep muscle of the posterior leg and it’s
fairly explanatory looking at its name as it facilitates plantarflexion at the
talocrural joint as well as plantarflexion of the metatarsophalangeal and
interphalangeal joints of the second to fifth digits. If we look at our image on
the right, we can see the second to fifth digits in the blue circle and the
metatarsophalangeal joints are these ones over here while the interphalangeal
joints are these joints down here. And of course, with this arrow, you can see
the plantarflexion. It also facilitates supination of the subtalar joint.

The flexor hallucis longus muscle is one of the smaller muscles of the posterior
compartment of the leg and, of course, is one of the deep muscles and it acts
mainly on your big toe. If you remember, hallucis is in reference to big toe
which is named hallux in Latin. Again, bringing in our posteromedial view of the
right leg, we can see the muscle running down the posterior aspect of the leg
and it’s involved in plantarflexion of the metatarsophalangeal and
interphalangeal joints of the big toe.

And again, let’s have a look at our circle, and the circle is pointing out our
metatarsophalangeal joint of the big toe and now it’s moving down, and the
second circle is pointing at the interphalangeal joint of the big toe – there’s only
one in the big toe – and of course, the flexor hallucis longus muscle also helps
with plantarflexion at the talocrural joint or our ankle joint. And it also helps
with supination of the foot at the subtalar joint. The flexor hallucis longus
muscle also supports the medial longitudinal arch of the foot.

Okay, let’s have a look at this short muscle of the knee joint, which is the
popliteus muscle. And the popliteus muscle stabilizes the posterior knee region
and I’m just bringing in an image of the popliteus muscle from a posteromedial
point of view and the popliteus also facilitates flexion and rotation of the knee
joint.
Alright, let’s move on to talk about the foot region and, of course, I’m just going
to show the foot again. And in this image, you can see the dorsal region of the
foot highlighted in green. As for the muscles of the foot, they can be divided
into a dorsal aspect which are found on the dorsum of the foot as well as the
plantar aspect which is found on the sole of the foot.

Let’s begin, of course, with the dorsal aspect of the foot, and there’s really only
one muscle that we’re going to be talking about today in this particular section
of the foot, and that’s the extensor digitorum brevis muscle. And in our image
on the right, we’re looking at the right foot from a superior view. Let’s make
things easier in terms of function. I’m just going to bring in this lateral view of
the foot – so we’re looking at the right foot laterally. And as you can see, the
extensor digitorum brevis muscle helps to extend the second to fourth toes at
the distal interphalangeal joints. So, I’m just circling the second to fourth toes
for you and these are the metatarsophalangeal joints while these are the
proximal interphalangeal joints of the second to fourth toes.

If there's an extensor digitorum brevis muscle then, of course, you can be sure
that there's an extensor hallucis brevis muscle and, of course, we're looking at
a superior view but let's switch over to a lateral view. The extensor hallucis
brevis muscle extends the metatarsophalangeal joint of the first toe, and over
here, I'm just circling the metatarsophalangeal joint of the first toe.

Okay, let’s move on to the plantar aspect of the foot, and the plantar aspect of
the foot which you can see highlighted in green, we can talk about these
muscles in different regions, and these regions are going to be the medial part
of the plantar part of the foot, the lateral part of the plantar part of the foot, and
the central region of the medial part of the foot. And we’re going to begin with
the medial side.

So, the medial side of the foot is this region just here in green. And because our
big toe is the most medial toe of the foot, always where obviously all of these
muscles are going to be related to the big toe or the hallux. So keep that in
mind as we begin.

And in this image, we’re looking at the flexor hallucis brevis muscle, and we’re
looking at it from an inferior view of the foot. So our medial aspect and, of
course, our big toe is on the left side of the image highlighted in green. And this
muscle is a short muscle found on the sole of the foot.

Let’s, of course, bring this muscle into a posteromedial view of the right foot,
and in this image, we can see that the flexor hallucis brevis muscle helps with
the flexion of the metatarsophalangeal joint of the big toe – the
metatarsophalangeal joint being circled in blue. The flexor hallucis brevis
muscle also supports the longitudinal arch of the foot.

Let’s move on now to talk about the adductor hallucis muscle, and as you can
see in this image, it’s a two-headed muscle with our favorite little head popping
up, and the function of the adductor hallucis muscle includes the flexion of the
big toe at the metatarsophalangeal joint and adduction of the big toe. The
adductor hallucis muscle also helps support the longitudinal and transverse
arches of the foot – the longitudinal one being the vertical line in this image and
the transverse one being the horizontal one. The adductor hallucis is
anatomically located in the central compartment of the foot but the muscle is
functionally grouped with the medial plantar muscles of the foot because it acts
on the great toe or hallux.

Alright, let’s move on now to the abductor hallucis muscle, and as we can see,
this muscle is involved with flexion at the first metatarsophalangeal joint as
well as medial abduction and the abductor hallucis muscle helps support the
longitudinal arches.

Let’s move on now to the lateral muscles of the plantar aspect of the foot, and
the green section that I’ve highlighted is, of course, the lateral aspect of the
foot, and is, of course, involved with the little toe. Keep that in mind as we look
at our first muscle of this region – the flexor digiti minimi brevis muscle – and
we know that it’s related to the little toe because it has digiti minimi in its
name. As we mentioned, it’s a muscle of the lateral aspect of the foot. So
looking at our posteromedial image of the right foot again, we can see the
flexor digiti minimi brevis highlighted in green. This muscle helps to flex the
little toe at the metatarsophalangeal joint.

Moving on now to the abductor digiti minimi muscle of the foot, we can see that
this muscle is involved in flexing the little toe at the metatarsophalangeal joint,
and it helps to abduct the little toe. The abductor digiti minimi also helps
support the longitudinal arch of the foot.

Let’s move on to our final category of the plantar foot – the central region – and
these are, of course, are located in the central part of the plantar aspect of the
foot – so the middle of the sole of the foot. The first muscle I want to look at is
the flexor digitorum brevis muscle and if you know any Latin, we know that -
orum is plural – so we’re talking about many digits – and you can see in the
image that this muscle has a relationship with the second to fifth toes.

And again looking at our posteromedial image, we can see that the flexor
digitorum brevis muscle is involved with the flexion of the metatarsophalangeal
and the proximal interphalangeal joints of the second to fifth toes. Of course,
our metatarsophalangeal joints are in this blue oval and our proximal
interphalangeal joints are in this blue oval. The flexor digitorum brevis muscle
also supports the longitudinal arch of the foot, as you can see with the blue
line.

Let’s move on now to a very interesting muscle called the quadratus plantae
muscle, and as you can see in the image, it’s shaped like a quadrilateral which
is why it’s called the quadratus plantae muscle. And the quadratus plantae
muscle is involved in flexing the second to fifth toes and it also helps to
redirect and augment the pull of the flexor digitorum longus. Now if you recall,
the flexor digitorum longus flexes the second to fifth toes at the
metatarsophalangeal joints and the proximal interphalangeal joints.

And I’m just going to bring in this image of the muscle just here, just to remind
you what it look like. Also, in our image on the right, the tendons of the flexor
digitorum longus are highlighted in blue and both of our images are of the right
foot, but the one on the right is from an inferior view whereas the image in the
blue is our posteromedial view. And as you can see in this image, the quadratus
plantae inserts into the tendon of the flexor digitorum longus which helps
increase the effect of the plantarflexion and of supination.

Okay, the next muscles I want to talk about are the lumbrical muscles, and
they’re a group of four short muscles that act directly on the skeleton. And
they, of course, help with flexion of the metatarsophalangeal joints of the
second to fifth toes as well as help with extension of the interphalangeal joints
of the second to fifth toes. It also helps with the adduction of the second to fifth
toes.

Okay, the last group that we want to talk about in this tutorial are the
interossei muscles, and there are plantar and dorsal interossei muscles so
we’re going to talk about both of them in this section. And, of course, let’s begin
with the dorsal interossei muscles which are found on the dorsal aspect of the
foot and, of course, we’re looking at the right foot from a superior view looking
downwards onto the dorsum.

We can see that they’re involved with the flexion of the metatarsophalangeal
joints of the second to fourth toes as well as the extension of interphalangeal
joints of the second to fourth toes, as well as the abduction of the third and
fourth toes. And, of course, the plantar interossei muscles are found on the
plantar aspect of the foot, and these help with the flexion of the metatarsal
joints of the third to fifth toes as well as extending the interphalangeal joints of
the third to fifth toes. They also help with the adduction of the third to fifth
toes.
So thanks for sticking with me during this tutorial. Now, we’re going to briefly
go through what we talked about today in our lovely summary.

We began with talking about the muscles of the hip region starting with the hip
flexors which involved the iliopsoas muscle which is made up of two muscles –
the iliacus and the psoas muscle. We then talked about the outer hip muscles,
and, of course, there are three major gluteal muscles in this region – the gluteus
maximus muscle which is the largest and most superficial of the gluteal
muscles, gluteus medius muscle which is part of the middle layer of these
muscles, and the gluteus minimus muscle which is the deepest of these
muscles.

We also talked about the piriformis muscle which helps with internal rotation,
and we talked about the tensor fasciae latae muscle which acts on the fascia
lata.

We talked about the muscles of the anterior thigh, which included the
quadriceps femoris which is one of the strongest muscles of the body and
contains four muscles – rectus femoris, the vastus medialis, the vastus
intermedius, the vastus lateralis – and we also talked about the sartorius
muscle which is one of the longest muscles in the body.

We talked about the posterior thigh muscles and these included the biceps
femoris muscle which is one of the three muscles of the hamstrings, the second
muscle of the hamstrings is the semimembranosus muscle which is named
because it’s flat and membranous, and we also talked about the
semitendinosus muscle which is the third of the hamstring muscles.

We then talked about the hip adductors which included the flat muscle – the
pectineus muscle. We talked about the adductor magnus muscle which is one
of the largest muscles in the body. We also talked about the adductor longus
muscle, which is part of this inner part of the leg, and we talked about the
adductor brevis muscle as well as the gracilis muscle which is a superficial
muscle running along the medial aspect of the thigh.

And then we went on to talk about the muscles of the leg which have three
compartments – the anterior compartment and the lateral compartment and the
posterior compartment. So let’s have a look at the anterior compartment of the
leg. This compartment has the tibialis anterior muscle which is the muscle that
guides a neurovascular pathway, the extensor digitorum longus muscle and the
extensor hallucis longus muscle. On the lateral compartment of the leg, there
was the peroneus longus muscle which is also known as the fibularis longus
muscles, the peroneus brevis muscle which you can see down the bottom
which is one of the extensor muscles of the leg.
Then we went on to talk about the posterior compartment of the leg which
included the triceps surae muscle, which is, again, itself made up of
gastrocnemius muscle and the soleus muscle which are the main muscles that
make up the bulk of the calf and are two of the most superficial muscles of the
posterior leg. We then talked about the plantaris which is a deep muscle of the
leg as well as the tibialis posterior which is another deep muscle of the
posterior compartment of the leg. We talked about the flexor digitorum longus
muscle which helps with plantarflexion of the foot and the flexor hallucis
longus muscle which acts on the big toe. We've talked about the popliteus
muscle which is found on the posterior aspect of the knee.

Moving to the region of the foot, we looked at several sections. First of all, the
dorsal aspect of the foot, and the main muscle that I talked about here was the
extensor digitorum brevis muscle, and we also looked at the extensor hallucis
brevis muscle. And then we moved on to talk about the muscles on the plantar
aspect of the foot, and again, this could be divided into three parts – a medial
part, a lateral part, and a central part. And in the medial part, we had a look at
the muscles that are related to the big toe or the hallux so that includes the
flexor hallucis brevis muscle, adductor hallucis muscle which, of course,
adducts the big toe, and the abductor hallucis muscle which, of course,
abducts the big toe.

We looked then at the lateral aspect of the foot which includes muscles that
are related to the little toe otherwise known in Latin as the digiti minimi, so the
flexor digiti minimi brevis muscle. We then looked at the abductor digiti minimi
muscle which abducts the little toe, and then we moved on to the central
muscles of the plantar aspect of the foot which included the flexor digitorum
brevis muscle and the quadratus plantae muscle which augments the action of
the flexor digitorum brevis muscle.

We also talked about the lumbrical muscles which is a group of four short
muscles of the foot and then we talked about the interossei muscle which are
on both sides of the foot – the plantar interossei muscles and the dorsal
interossei muscles.