Muscles to the Masses

We know that the gastroc is on the back of the lower leg, superficially. That means it’s close to the surface. And, really it’s the closest calf muscle to the surface.

The name of the muscle is from Latin and Greek and translates to stomach of the leg -- that’s referring to the bulging shape of the calf.

Gastroc goes from two bellies at it’s attachment site above the back of the knee crease and forms into one attachment below the joints of the ankle.

We’ve been focusing on the upper thigh and quite frankly, I’m tired of talking about the hip joint! And, I want to talk about a big, meaty muscle. So, we’re traveling south on the back of the leg to the Soleus.

The soleus and gastroc (which is what I often call gastrocnemius) are together known as the triceps surae and is the strongest muscle group of the leg. Can you believe that?!

We’re continuing along on our discussions of hip flexors, and thus we can’t not talk about Sartorius.

Sartorius is a weird muscle. First off, it’s the longest muscle of the human body.

And, in addition to crossing the hip joint, it also crosses the knee joint, but it doesn’t extend the knee like its cousins the quadriceps group.

Sartorius actually flexes the knee joint!

I say that sartorius is weird because we’ve been talking about the muscles on the front of the quad and if you think about the movement of the knee (that flexion and extension), you’d think that a muscle on the front of the body would only be able to extend the knee based on it’s position.

BUT NOOOOOO, enter swoopy sartorius to shake things up.

As this is the third episode of the quadriceps group and you know that they are a powerful group of muscles on the front of the thigh. And that together, as a group, they are responsible for knee flexion.

We’ve covered two of the four muscles of the quadriceps group in the last two episodes and today we’re truly diving deep (get it that’s a muscle joke!) to the Vastus Intermedius which lies under the Rectus Femoris and between the Vastus Lateralis and Vastus Medialis. And, we’ll finish up talking about the quads with the Vastus Medialis.

Vastus Lateralis, the quad that's the most lateral of the quadriceps femoris muscle group. You may even think about it like a side-of-the-body muscle.