Anterior Compartment of Thigh – Anterior and Medial Thigh

00:00 If we look at these muscles in their anatomical position, then we can see most superficially, we have sartorius passing across the quadriceps muscles, we can see rectus femoris, we can see vastus lateralis, and we can see vastus medialis. If we remove sartorius, we can again see our quadriceps muscles. This time we can see iliopsoas passing beneath the inguinal ligaments which we can see here. We see the psoas major and the iliacus contributions to it. We can also see pectineus. In a more radical dissection, we can actually start to see the joint capsule of the hip. We can also see where iliopsoas is being cut here and here, so we can see that. And rectus femoris has also been removed. We can see its cut here, and we can see vastus intermedialis. As all of these muscles now converge onto the patella via the quadriceps tendon and then onto the tibial tuberosity via the patellar tendon or the patellar ligament. So the quadriceps femoris muscle is the main extensor of the knee and it makes up the bulk of the anterior thigh. It includes, as I’ve mentioned, rectus femoris, vastus lateralis and vastus intermedius, vastus medialis, those four muscles.

01:23 It’s innervated primarily by the femoral nerve and it’s supplied by the femoral artery.

01:29 Tendons from all four of these muscles form the quadriceps tendon, and it is the patella that is embedded within the tendon, and it attaches to the tibial tuberosity, these muscles, via the patellar tendon. So the patella is within the tendon that passes from the quadriceps to the tibial tuberosity. Vastus lateralis and medialis attach also independently to the patella. So these, via the lateral and medial patellar retinacula, attach to the patella. And we can just about make this out. We can see we have some ligaments, some kind of fibrous connections that are running from these muscles towards the patella. We can see them running towards the patella, and these help to stabilize the patella.

02:17 Anterior compartment of the thigh also includes sartorius, iliopsoas, and pectineus. Sartorius is that long slender muscle that has a whole series of complex movements of the hip. And iliopsoas and pectineus, as we’ll see later on, are important in forming the floor of the femoral triangle. We can see them here, and they are going to form the floor of the femoral triangle.