Hi everyone, welcome to Bodyworks Prime. Today we're going over the origin insertion and action of the flexor carpi ulnaris. [Music] Pictured here you can see the flexor carpi ulnaris highlighted in green. You can see it running down the medial side the forearm here and then crossing over the wrist joint. Some other muscles close by to it are: the flexor digitorum superficialis and the palmaris longus. I've got videos on those, as well as other muscles of the forearm, so check out my other videos if you're interested in that. So we've swapped over to a different view so we can see the flexor carpi ulnaris in isolation and you can see here how it's connecting onto the elbow, coming down, crossing the wrist joint, and connecting onto the hand here. Don't worry, we'll go over in more detail in a little bit about those specific origin and insertion points. But as a general overview of the muscle, what we want to understand is that it's connecting to the back of the elbow here (or the posterior of the elbow if you want to use anatomical terminology) and then onto the front of the hand (or the anterior or palmer surface of the hand). Let's swap over to a posterior view, looking at the body from the back, so we can see that in more detail. So you can see now how this posterior view better illustrates how the flexor carpi ulnaris connects onto the humerus here and also onto the ulna. As it continues down the arm here, it's crossing from the posterior of the ulna across onto the anterior. So it's crossing from the back to the front and then it's crossing over the wrist joint, where it meets its insertion point. We'll go over the specific anatomical names of the origins the insertions now, so stay tuned for that. So you can see those origin points now marked out here in red. You'll notice there's one on each side, you've got one here on the humerus and one here on the ulna. That's because this muscle has two heads, it has an appropriately named humeral head, on the humerus, and an ulna head on the ulna. These two heads of the muscle converge together just like you can see here to form a tenderness arch which connects them together. We'll start by going over this specifics the humeral head first, so the humeral head is originating right here on the medial epicondyle the humerus. So this would be the lateral epicondyle on this side and then this would be the medial epicondyle the humerus. Now, the flexor carpi ulnaris is part of the common flexor tendon. So what the common flexor tendon is, is that it's a tendon that attaches onto the medial epicondyle the humerus and it serves as an attachment point for superficial muscles the forearm, where multiple muscles that all come together, and their fibers merge to form that common flexor tendon. The muscles of the common flexor tendon are: of course, the flexor carpi ulnaris, but also, the palmaris longus, flexor carpi radialis, pronates teres and the flexor digitorum superficialis. I've got videos on all of those, if you want to see those videos, I'll put links in the description box below, so you can check out all the common flexor tendon muscles. So let's take a look at the ulnar head here, you can see it starting here, just on the back of the elbow. Now this part of the elbow here is called the olecranon, it's that big bony bump on the back of your elbow essentially. You can't really miss it. So it's starting off on the olecranon and then it's continuing down here, and as it continues down, this would be the posterior border of the ulna. It's going to be around the upper two-thirds of the posterior border of the ulna. So essentially, our origin point is going to be on the olecranon and the upper two thirds of the posterior border of the ulna. So now we've returned to an anterior view of the hand, so we're looking at the hand from the front again, and let's move the muscle out of the way so we can see the insertion points. So now we can see the insertions marked out in blue and that's going to be on the pisiform bone, the hamate bone and the base of the fifth metacarpal. Now, you can see all of those bones color coordinated and labelled, so feel free to pause the video here if you'd like to take a longer look. Here's these blue insertion points brought back into view again so you can see them for reference as well. Now, for those of you paying close attention, you'll have noticed that this muscle picture doesn't actually show the muscle connecting to the hamate bone or the base of the fifth metacarpal. I want to explain the reason for that in a little bit more detail. So now you can see I brought two ligaments into view, one on the left, one on the right. These two ligaments connect the pisiform to the hamate and the base of the fifth matter carpal. So I brought those bony labels back into view so you can see how the pisiform connects to hamate via the pisiohamate ligament and how the pisiform connects to fifth metacarpal bone via the pisiometacarpal ligament. So hopefully this clarifies why most depictions the flexor carpi ulnaris don't always show it connecting onto the hamate or the fifth metacarpal. This is because its two ligaments which are connecting onto those two bones. However, due to the close proximity of those ligaments to the flexor carpi ulnaris and the strong influence this muscle has on those two ligaments the hamate and the fifth metacarpal are classed as insertion points as well. So let's take a look at the actions next. The flexor carpi ulnaris is crossing over two joints. The wrist joint and the elbow joint as well. We'll start off by taking a look at the wrist joint because this is where the primary actions occur at. So flexor carpi ulnaris is inserting around here on the pisiform, so as it contracts, that can result in flexion of the wrist joint. So this would be flexion, this would be extension. Because our insertion slightly offset to one side as well, as it contracts, it can pull the wrist to the side like that. That would be adduction of the wrist, because remember any movements in anatomy are described in the anatomical position, which is hands down by your side, with the thumbs pointing away from you either side. So that would be adduction of the wrist joint in this case. Now, in addition to these actions of the wrist, it also has one action at the elbow joint as well. Remember, it's connecting onto common flexor tendon here, so as this muscle contracts, it can very weakly assist in flexion of the elbow joint. That flexion of the elbow joint is in by no means a primary action of this muscle, it is really weak, but it can assist other muscles in contributing to that flexion of the elbow joint. So if you've enjoyed this video, or you found it helpful, you know which buttons to press! Press that like, subscribe, remember to leave a comment as well, it really helps out the channel. Thanks again for watching everyone. I'll see you all next time.