Anatomical names and fascial continuity (Part 3)
In this last segment, a flap is made with an incision on the glutes, the superficial layers consist of fat globules and below it the fascia profunda. On the deeper undersides of the fascia profunda are fascial connections that seamlessly fuse into the gluteal muscles like a weave. Todd also adds that these fascial connections travel to the depths of the periosteum at microscopic levels.
We observe that the structure of the fascia profunda of the glutes is organized differently from the hamstrings, despite the commonality in the anatomical name. Below in the drawing, there are several faint near vertical lines in the center most section that resemble teeth of the Baleen whale. The fascia profunda in the hamstrings however, consist of broad stringy webs that connect from the superficial layer of the fascia profunda under the epidermis, to the deeper layers of the fascia profunda. It does not visually weave itself to the muscles under the deeper fascia profunda like aforementioned glutes.
We saw the fascia profunda of the hamstring group intact, now we are deep to the fascia profunda, so we are relating from muscle fiber to the deep surface of the fascia profunda. Everyone, i have thought this many times, and i am going to say it this time. When i look at this set of structures, the muscle almost disappears in my mind as far as importance is concerned. Because what i see, what i am looking here, and i have no reason to convince you of anything. I am in the profession of just looking, so as i look here, what really gets my attention is what makes continuity, what is making this surface continuous with what i can’t see yet, so the fascia is whats making continuity, because the muscle will go somewhere and make movement available to a joint and other tissues. But the fascia is going to go as deep as you can possibly imagine it, or i should say, come from as deep as you can possibly imagine it, periosteum of the bone…right? or even microscopic where its gonna be endomysium…okay? So i want everybody to be thinking about the fascia even to the point of where we would need a microscope in order to follow it.
Tom Myers: So around each one of the muscle fibers would be a sarcolemme and around each group of muscle fibers the endomysium and each multi nucleated cell, and then the perimysium allowing the glide, can you see how the fibers are gliding on each other? There are lots of them in there, that is on the perimysium and the epimysium of the muscle in this case is built right into the profundus, that is why i was saying there are exceptions there is a profundus layer but here it is very hard to separate the profundus layer from the layer that goes over the butt muscle.Now everybody, remember, just like we were saying earlier, i am not trying to include everybody in being in agreeance with me, just that you are going to see the same set of structures functioning similarly no matter where you look at the body. We are talking about the hamstring muscles, and now we are using the model of gluteus maximus and the fascia coming from, through and around the muscle fiber to the deep surface of the profunda, but i have to insist on accuracy in your thought here, remember that the organization is unique to this muscle, so the way we are seeing the fascia organized here is specific to the gluteus maximus, we will not see this exact same pattern if we are to look at the hamstrings at this very same level okay? Its not the same set of structures…not doing the same thing, so again we can’t get lazy and just say fascia profundus connecting everything and now i am conveniently dissecting the fascia profunda of the gluteus maximus and when we get to the hamstrings, i am conveniently dissecting the fascia from the hamstring to the deep surface of the profunda, we cant get lazy like that, we have to always be thinking about treating, understanding, how the tissue is specific to the structures even though they carry the same name… as fascia profunda…or adipose…right?