List of muscles by volume in average man
Is there any research-based list of muscles and muscle groups by their volume or mass, in average men (or even any subset of healthy human population)?
It's easy to find statements like gluteus maximus and quadriceps femoris being among the biggest muscles in the body, but without precise data. With some effort I can also find research such as www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12012082 for specific muscles and extract basic information such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectus_abdominis_muscle#Size (from 3 papers):
It's typically around 10 mm thick (compared to 20 mm thick superficial fat),[2] or 20 mm thick in young athletes such as handball players.[3] Typical volume is around 300 cm³ in non-active indivuals, or almost 500 cm³ in athletes (tennis players).[4]
I can't however find an overview. Any suggestion? Another question asks about relative size with a focus on upper vs. lower body.
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Here, I made a list :)
# cm^3 muscle
1 879.65 Gluteus maximus
674.00 Vastus lateralis
599.20 Adductor magnus
580.00 Vastus intermedius
5 531.90 Soleus
461.00 Vastus medialis
458.29 Gluteus medius
323.45 Rectus femoris
306.73 Psoas major
10 262.30 Latissimus dorsi
256.80 Medial gastrocnemius
242.73 Trapezius
233.35 Biceps femoris long head
231.13 Semimembranosus
15 230.82 Pectoralis major sternocostal
210.78 External obliques
196.47 Semitendinosus
182.50 Adductor Longus
181.80 Sartorius
20 180.89 Deltoid (acromial)
174.45 Triceps brachii long head
171.49 Gluteus minimus
171.23 Lateral gastrocnemius
166.80 Tibialis anterior
25 164.50 Subscapularis
158.35 Rectus abdominus
149.92 Internal obliques
147.91 Longissimus thoracis
147.20 Multifidus
30 143.70 Brachialis
There are a few main papers on this topic, and I combined them as best I could.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021929006004428 www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ofaj/80/2.3/80_2.3_47/_pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017737/ jap.physiology.org/content/113/10/1545.figures-only http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10255840008908000 www.strengthandconditioningresearch.com/
All of these are for one copy of the muscle (hence the difference from your rectus abdominus value). Two of these studies use elderly cadavers and one is a simulation. For those, I computed the geometric average ratio where there were overlapping datapoints and used this ratio to extrapolate implied volumes for the remaining datapoints. Anywhere there were 2 or more resulting datapoints I took the linear average. Finally, I used about 10 other studies of individual muscles that aren't cited here.
Gluteus medius, psoas, and erector spinae were particularly hard to get data on. Despite the erector spinae being 843cm^3 in one study, and possibly more, I only found individual data on longissimus thoracis and 2 other of the 9 muscles involved. It could be that at least one of the missing ones belongs on the list.
Let me know if you want more muscles on the list, muscle groups, or my spreadsheet. I'm pretty confident that these top 30 are close, but any further extension to the list might have many missing items.
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