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Updated: May 29, 2025
The soleus, so named from resembling a sole-fish, is a muscle of broad, flattened shape, lying beneath the gastrocnemius. The tendons of these two muscles unite to form the tendon of Achilles, as that hero is said to have been invulnerable except at this point. The muscles of the calf have great power, and are constantly called into use in walking, cycling, dancing, and leaping.
On the back of the thigh are several large muscles which bend the knee, and whose tendons, known as the "hamstrings," are readily felt just behind the knee. On the back of the leg the most important muscles, forming what is known as the calf, are the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The first forms the largest part of the calf.
The miserably developed calves of many of the savages of Australia, Africa, and America are well known. The fine, swelling gastroenemius and soleus muscles characterize the highest races, and are most remote from the slender shanks of the monkeys. The gluteus muscles developed in the lower races as well as in the higher distinguish them well from the monkeys with their flat posterior outline.
We have already seen that a double engine, made up of the gastrocnemius and soleus, is the power which is applied to the heel when we walk, and that the pad of the foot, lying across the sole in line with the ball of the great toe, serves as a fulcrum or rest. The weight of the body falls on the foot between the fulcrum in front and the power behind, as in a lever of the second order.
B, First maximum leverage. C, Second dead centre. Now, we have seen that the tendon of Achilles is the piston cord, and the heel the crank-pin, of the muscular engine represented by the gastrocnemius and soleus. In the standing posture the heel slopes downwards and backwards, and is thus in a position, as regards its piston cord, considerably beyond the point of maximum leverage.
The sartorius is one of the fleshy landmarks of the thigh, as the biceps is of the arm, and the sterno-cleido-mastoid of the neck. Its direction and borders may be easily traced by raising the leg, a movement which puts the muscle in action. If the model be directed to stand on tiptoe, both of the large muscles of the calf, the gastrocnemius and soleus, can be distinguished.
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