Leg in Cross Section

00:01 In this lecture, we're going to look at the anatomy of the leg as we continue looking at the lower limb.

00:08 So let's first of all remind ourselves of the location of the leg within the lower limb.

00:13 And here we can see on the anterior surface of the leg, which is positioned between the knee superiorly and the ankle inferiorly.

00:21 We can also see its posterior surface here with the mass of what will later find out to be gastrocnemius and soleus on the posterior surface.

00:30 If we then just have a look at the cross section of the leg, as well, and we're familiar with this view at the moment.

00:36 We've seen it many times before when we looked at the thigh, we can see actually there is the two bones wedged in the middle of the leg.

00:44 We've got the tibia and the fibular, the tibia is medial and the fibular is more lateral, and connecting these two bones within the leg is an interosseous membrane, and then passing from the fibular to the more anterior aspects of the leg, we have an anterior intermuscular septum, we also have a posterior intermuscular septum.

01:05 And these sectie are important in separating the leg into various compartments.

01:11 So between the interosseous membrane and the anterior intermuscular septum, we have an anterior compartment.

01:18 Between the anterior intermuscular septum and the posterior intermuscular septum, we have a lateral compartment.

01:26 And then finally, posterior to both the interosseous membrane and the posterior intermuscular septum, we have a posterior compartment.

01:36 The posterior compartment itself can be further divided into two areas via this transverse intermuscular septum.

01:43 And this separates the deep from the superficial posterior areas of that posterior compartment.

01:50 So we can see similar to other regions across the body, we have an interosseous membrane and then various scepter which helps to separate the leg into various different compartments.

02:02 We can now have a look at the specific muscles that form these compartments starting with the anterior compartment.