How to memorize origins and insertions

Last night I got a question about how to memorize origins and insertions for anatomy.  My comment quickly turned into a book, so I figured I’d make it a post and call it a day.  Skip to the double astericks** if anatomy bores you.

You’re right, mnemonics don’t really work for muscle attachments -too many of them.  It demands a different strategy – here’s what I believe in:

1.  First, make a table.  I use 5 columns across the top of the page for “muscle name” “origin” “insertion” “action” and “innervation”.  If you’re feeling fancy, you can color-code, but it’s not necessary. Once everything you need to know is in one place for easy reference, memorizing it starts to seem possible – and you won’t be wasting time flipping pages around.

These folks have clearly just found out there are 600 muscles in the human body and they have to know at least 5 things about each one.

2.  Prioritize.  First, learn just the bone of attachment for each muscle. Then the process/part of the bone.  Then any absurdly specific details your professor wants you to know about that process. It’s okay if you don’t finish the 3rd pass – I sure didn’t – but you’d be surprised by how much further you’ll be ahead of everyone if you start each unit by memorizing what bones the muscles attach to.

What you want to avoid is trying to memorize the long and detailed version for each muscle before moving onto the next.  It’s all too easy for this to take so long that you run out of time.*  If you start with a quick pass of bones, then add detail, you’ll at least know enough about each muscle to guarantee an intelligent guess.

3.  Try memorizing by action. For example, most of the medial rotators of the arm attach to the intertubercular groove.  (Not the “floor of the” or “the lateral lip of the” or, god forbid, the “lateral 3/4 of the inner side of the”- at least not yet.  Those are low-yield details that you can hammer into your brain with flashcards the day before a test if you have time).  So, that’s great – but subscapularis is the exception.  How to remember subscapularis?  Well, I remember that the lateral rotators attach to the greater tubercle (because I made a list of where the lateral rotators attached)- so since the subscap is a medial rotator, by elimination I know it must attach to the lesser tubercle.

Okay, so this guy is probably capable of memorizing everything on the 1st try. But he also "aced his MCATs" and "cleverly has no personal life". So.

4.  Try memorizing by common insertion points. Making a list of which muscles attach at a given location (rather than the reverse) and doing some rudimentary memorization of that list can speed things up quite a bit.  (Only worth doing with common insertion points – greater trochanter, ASIS, etc.)  For example – the coronoid process of the ulna.  What attaches there?  The brachialis and a bunch of forearm muscles.  What do they have in common?  They’re all flexors – FDP, FDS, and FDP longus flex digits, while Pronator Teres and brachialis flex the elbow.

Cool.  Now I have two ways of potentially remembering this information during the test.  If I’ve forgotten Pronator Teres’ attachments, but I remember it’s a flexor – then I might remember that most flexors attach to the coronoid process.  If I’ve remembered its attachments but forgotten its secondary action, then I can just remember “hey, everything attached to the coronoid process is a flexor.  It must flex.”

“Too long, didn’t read” version: Get all the info down in one place and start by memorizing everything according to general attachments only.  Then group the info in various ways by writing simple lists, thereby increasing the number of ways you can remember it on the test.

Anyone else have any anatomy advice?

* For example, once you know that the brachialis attaches to the ulna (and not the radius)  – then you can start adding “coronoid process and tuberosity of the ulna” to your memory.  Otherwise, if you draw a partial blank on test day, it’s anyone’s guess what part of that sentence you might remember – maybe you’ll only remember “tuberosity”.  Not as helpful as “ulna”.

** Fun fact:  Shania Twain’s real name is Eileen Edwards.  If that doesn’t surprise you, then you should know that Tina Turner’s real name was Anna Bullock, and Tori Amos was really named Myra.  Hopefully this entry was now not a total waste of your time.