Part of the With What family
Exercise With What

Region

Forearm

Where grip actually lives. The muscles that close your fingers are here, not in your hand.

14 structures · 13 muscles · 1 joint

The superficial flexors of the forearm — the muscles that close your hand, lying well above the wrist.

Front of the left forearm. Superficial.

That is the plate’s own caption, as printed in the 1918 edition.

Henry Vandyke Carter, plate 414 of Anatomy of the Human Body (Henry Gray, 1918). Public domain — file on Wikimedia Commons.

Bone structure

  • Radius
  • Ulna
  • Carpals

Key functions

  • Elbow flexion
  • Wrist extension
  • Wrist radial deviation
  • Wrist ulnar deviation
  • Finger extension
  • Wrist flexion
  • Finger flexion
  • Forearm pronation
  • Forearm supination

Muscle structure

Joints

Tendons and attachments

Brachioradialis
from Upper two-thirds of the lateral supracondylar ridge of the humerus
to Styloid process of the radius
Extensor carpi radialis brevis
from Lateral epicondyle of the humerus, via the common extensor tendon
to Base of the third metacarpal
Extensor carpi radialis longus
from Lower third of the lateral supracondylar ridge of the humerus
to Base of the second metacarpal
Extensor carpi ulnaris
from Lateral epicondyle of the humerus via the common extensor tendon, and the posterior border of the ulna
to Base of the fifth metacarpal
Extensor digitorum
from Lateral epicondyle of the humerus, via the common extensor tendon
to Extensor expansions of the four fingers
Flexor carpi radialis
from Medial epicondyle of the humerus, via the common flexor tendon
to Bases of the second and third metacarpals
Flexor carpi ulnaris
from Medial epicondyle of the humerus and the olecranon and posterior border of the ulna
to Pisiform, hook of the hamate, and the base of the fifth metacarpal
Flexor digitorum profundus
from Upper three-quarters of the anterior and medial surfaces of the ulna and the interosseous membrane
to Bases of the distal phalanges of the four fingers
Flexor digitorum superficialis
from Medial epicondyle of the humerus, the coronoid process of the ulna, and the upper radius
to Sides of the middle phalanges of the four fingers
Palmaris longus
from Medial epicondyle of the humerus, via the common flexor tendon
to Flexor retinaculum and the palmar aponeurosis
Pronator quadratus
from Distal quarter of the anterior surface of the ulna
to Distal quarter of the anterior surface of the radius
Pronator teres
from Medial epicondyle of the humerus (humeral head) and the coronoid process of the ulna (ulnar head)
to Lateral surface of the middle of the radius
Supinator
from Lateral epicondyle of the humerus, the radial collateral and annular ligaments, and the supinator crest of the ulna
to Upper third of the radius, wrapping its lateral and anterior surfaces

Movements that load it

Where this came from

Every name, attachment and action on this page is read from The Atlas’s own records — each one checked against Terminologia Anatomica, and each one linked above so you can read the full entry. Nothing here is retyped or approximated, so this page cannot drift from the collection: it is the collection, arranged by region.

The figure is different in kind: it is sourced, not drawn here and not generated. A diagram is a claim, and an invented one is a claim nobody can check — so the plates are Henry Vandyke Carter’s, engraved for the 1918 edition and long out of copyright, credited above with a link to the file so you can verify the licence yourself. Being 1918, they carry the anatomical names of their day, which do not always match the modern ones used in the records.

Plate captions were read from the Internet Archive’s scan of the 1918 edition (anatomyofhumanbo00grayrich), and the licence of every plate was checked against its own file record on Commons rather than assumed from the age of the book. The build refuses to publish a page whose plate is not public domain.