Most of the muscles of the anterior thigh, four out five, insert distally on the tibia. They are primarily concerned with extending the knee. Two of these muscles also cross the hip joint to serve as hip flexors.

Interestingly, these four muscles (the quadriceps) converge into a single tendon that courses around and over the knee cap prior to their attachment to the tibial tuberosity. That portion of the tendon of the quadriceps that runs from the patella to the tibial tuberosity is then called the patellar ligament. The patella keeps the tendon of the quadriceps from fraying, and gives the quadriceps additional leverage in their knee extension activities.

The quadriceps are truly propulsive muscles. They extend the knee during the "stance phase" of walking - heel-strike to toe-off. This slight amount of extension helps propel us forward.

The femoral nerve, emerging from under the inguinal ligament and almost immediately branching into several motor branches, provides both motor and sensory nerve supply to the anterior thigh region.

The superior anterior thigh contains an important collection of vessels and nerves fairly close to the skin, called the femoral triangle. It's bounded laterally by the sartorius, superiorly by the inguinal ligament and medially by the adductor longus. The femoral triangle houses, from lateral to medial, the femoral nerve, artery, vein and lymph vessels and nodes - N.A.V.L. The pectineus muscle forms the floor of the triangle, while the fascia lata forms the roof of the triangle.