Action
With the leg in neutral (straightened), the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus function together to pull the thigh away from midline, or "abduct" the thigh. During gait, these two muscles function principally in supporting the body on one leg, in conjunction with the tensor fascia lata, to prevent the pelvis from dropping to the opposite side.
Additionally, with the hip flexed the gluteus medius and minimus internally rotate the thigh. With the hip extended, the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus externally rotate the thigh.
Dysfunction of the gluteus medius or the superior gluteal nerve can potentially be indicated by a positive Trendelenburg's sign.
Read more about this topic: Gluteus Medius Muscle
Famous quotes containing the word action:
“Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit, which is directly received.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)