🪴 GoDeep
Search
← University Challenge
Portrait of Sartorius

Anatomy · Muscles

Sartorius

The longest muscle in the human body

Lower limb · thigh, anterior compartment

Sartorius is the long, strap-like muscle that winds obliquely across the front of the thigh from the anterior superior iliac spine to the medial side of the upper tibia. Standard anatomy texts describe it as the longest muscle in the human body. It flexes and laterally rotates the hip and flexes the knee, is supplied by the femoral nerve, and gives its name to the tailor's cross-legged sitting position.

How to spot them

  • ▸Long ribbon of muscle running diagonally from the pelvis at the outer hip to the inner side of the knee
  • ▸Superficial, crossing the thigh from lateral to medial
  • ▸Forms the lateral border of the femoral triangle and the roof of the adductor canal
  • ▸Its tendon joins gracilis and semitendinosus at the pes anserinus

What to know

The longest muscle in the human body, running diagonally across the front of the thigh

Sartorius.

The muscle named from the Latin for tailor, because it produces the cross-legged sitting posture

Sartorius — flexion, abduction and lateral rotation of the hip, with knee flexion.

It arises from the anterior superior iliac spine and inserts on the upper medial tibia

Sartorius.

The muscle whose medial edge forms the lateral boundary of the femoral triangle

Sartorius.

One of three tendons that fan out on the inner side of the tibia as the 'goose's foot', pes anserinus, with gracilis and semitendinosus

Sartorius.

A thigh muscle supplied by the femoral nerve that crosses both hip and knee

Sartorius — the nerve is femoral (L2–L3).

Key ideas

  • It crosses both hip and knee, giving the cross-legged position of a tailor: hip flexed, abducted and laterally rotated, knee flexed.
  • Its tendon is one of three at the pes anserinus, which is superficial to the medial collateral ligament.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Origin: anterior superior iliac spine and the notch just below it.
  • •Insertion: superomedial surface of the tibia, at the pes anserinus.
  • •Nerve supply: femoral nerve (L2–L3).
  • •Actions: flexes, abducts and laterally rotates the hip; flexes the knee.
  • •Generally described as the longest muscle in the human body, from the hip to the inner side of the knee.
  • •Sartor is Latin for tailor, from the cross-legged posture tailors sat in.
  • •The pes anserinus (goose's foot) is formed by sartorius, gracilis and semitendinosus.

Drill it — 6 cards

1 / 6new card

Sources