Part of the With What family
Exercise With What

Region

Thigh

The largest muscle mass in the body. Everything that straightens your knee, and most of what bends it.

13 structures · 13 muscles

The front of the thigh: psoas and iliacus crossing the hip, then the quadriceps, sartorius and the adductors.

Muscles of the iliac and anterior femoral regions.

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

Henry Vandyke Carter, plate 430 of Anatomy of the Human Body (Henry Gray, 1918). Public domain — file on Wikimedia Commons.

Bone structure

  • Femur
  • Patella

Key functions

  • Hip adduction
  • Hip flexion
  • Hip extension
  • Knee flexion
  • Knee external rotation
  • Knee internal rotation
  • Knee extension
  • Hip abduction
  • Hip external rotation

Muscle structure

Tendons and attachments

Adductor longus
from Front of the body of the pubis, just below the pubic crest
to Middle third of the linea aspera of the femur
Adductor magnus
from Inferior pubic ramus, ramus of the ischium, and the ischial tuberosity
to The linea aspera and medial supracondylar line of the femur, and the adductor tubercle
Biceps femoris
from Long head from the ischial tuberosity; short head from the lateral lip of the linea aspera of the femur
to Head of the fibula, with a slip to the lateral condyle of the tibia
Gracilis
from Lower half of the body of the pubis and the inferior pubic ramus
to Upper medial surface of the tibia, as part of the pes anserinus
Pectineus
from Pecten pubis — the ridge on the superior ramus of the pubis
to Pectineal line of the femur, between the lesser trochanter and the linea aspera
Quadriceps femoris
from Four separate heads — one from the pelvis, three from the shaft of the femur
to The tibial tuberosity, via the quadriceps tendon, the patella and the patellar ligament
Rectus femoris
from Two heads — the anterior inferior iliac spine (straight head) and the groove above the acetabulum (reflected head)
to Base of the patella, then the tibial tuberosity via the patellar ligament
Sartorius
from Anterior superior iliac spine
to Upper medial surface of the tibia, as part of the pes anserinus
Semimembranosus
from Ischial tuberosity, by a broad flat tendon deep to the other hamstrings
to Posterior aspect of the medial condyle of the tibia
Semitendinosus
from Ischial tuberosity, by a tendon shared with the long head of biceps femoris
to Upper medial surface of the tibia, as part of the pes anserinus
Vastus intermedius
from Anterior and lateral surfaces of the upper two-thirds of the shaft of the femur
to Deep surface of the quadriceps tendon, then the patella and the tibial tuberosity
Vastus lateralis
from Greater trochanter, the intertrochanteric line and the lateral lip of the linea aspera of the femur
to Lateral border of the patella, then the tibial tuberosity via the patellar ligament
Vastus medialis
from Intertrochanteric line and the medial lip of the linea aspera of the femur
to Medial border of the patella, then the tibial tuberosity via the patellar ligament

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.