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Anatomy made easy(-ish), Part 1: Saggital view

Anatomy of the musculoskeletal system in itself is pretty straight forward. Muscle group/name, function, joints and location. Depending on the source you use, there could be between 650-800 skeletal muscles in the body. Now learning all these muscles by heart would be a drag. In this article we're going to look in to a system that'll make it a lot easier to remember the main muscle groups. Want to find out how you can easily categorize and derive the muscles function? Are you curious about anatomy but a lazy student? Read on.

So today we're going to talk about all the movements that can be perceived in the saggital view. The saggital view is where you stand perpendicular to a person (ie from the side).

We're going to look in to how to easily derive function from position. Now imagine a line going straight through the middle of someones body. And we'll lable the front, the anterior side and the back, the posterior side.
As a rule:
All the muscles in the front of the shoulder and hip will function as Anteflexors.
All the muscles in the back of the shoulder and hip will have a functions as Retroflexors.

All the muscles in front of the elbow will function as Flexors.
All the muscles in the back of the elbow will function as Extensors.
In the knee joint, this rule is vice versa.

All the muscles in the front of the ankle joint will Dorsiflex.
All the muscles in the back of the ankle joint will Plantar flex.

Easy enough right?
Now there's only two things you need to remember.
- The position of the muscle
- The joints it crosses

For instance:
The biceps muscle is at the anterior side of the body.
The biceps muscle crosses both the elbow and the shoulder joint.
Which movements can be found in the anterior part of the shoulder and elbow? Flexion of the elbow, anteflexion of the shoulder.

The Gastrocnemius is at the posterior side of the body.
It crosses both the knee joint and the ankle joint.
The functions of the Gastrocnemius are flexion of the knee and plantar flexion of the ankle.

By using this system we now either have to know: the function of the muscle and the position. Or the position of the muscle and the joints it crosses. This works for every muscle you have!
Also please note there is a lack of nuance here and there. A lot of muscles function across different planes of movement. We will be reviewing these in the coming articles!

Hopefully you found this helpful:)


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