The abdominal musculature

The back musculature

Muscles of the thigh

The thigh (femur) is the longest bone in the human body and, because it is anchored in the hip joint, is essential for stable, upright gait. To enable this upright gait, however, we need the thigh muscles. The thigh muscles include the flexors and extensors.

In addition, many other muscles are involved in the thigh area, which originate in the pelvis and are extremely important for pulling the thigh up, for example (adductor group). Here, however, only the thigh muscles will be discussed.First there is the extensor group, i.e. the thigh muscles that ensure that we can bend the hip joint (flexion) and stretch the knee straight (extension). The extensor muscles of the thigh originate in the area of the head of the femur (capitis femoris) as well as in the area of the hip (exactly: spina iliaca anterior inferior).

From here, the musculature moves into the area of the knee and starts there. Overall, the extensor muscle is referred to as the Musculus quadriceps femoris. It consists of 4 muscle parts.

If the quadriceps muscle is tensed (contracted), the muscle shortens and thus pulls the knee joint “straight”, i.e. stretches it. The antagonist muscles, i.e. the flexor muscles, of the thigh are located on the back, i.e. they originate in the area of the buttocks and pull the knee joint “straight” from behind.

Here we distinguish three large muscles. On the one hand there is the muscle biceps femoris, which has 2 muscle heads (hence the name biceps) but is still counted as one muscle because it has only one base in the area of the knee. In addition, there is the muscle semimembranosus and muscle semitendinosus.

The latter two also originate in the area of the buttocks and extend from here to the knee. When these muscles are tensed, the muscle shortens and the knee is pulled backwards, resulting in flexion in the knee joint. In addition, the biceps femoris muscle can cause the knee to rotate outwards, while the semimembranosus and semitendinosus muscles cause the knee to rotate inwards. All three muscles additionally stabilize the pelvis in the sagittal plane.

The rectus femoris muscle
The vastus lateralis muscle
The vastus medialis muscle
And the vastus intermedius muscle.