What is the QF?

What is the QF?

Have you heard of the muscle called QF?
…if you haven’t here is all you need to know about this awesome little muscle.

If you are PM patient who is working on a hip injury or pelvis stability,
then you probably have heard it mentioned in an appointment-

But even if you know that it’s an important muscle and that it needs to be strengthened,
you may not know where it is exactly is or why it’s so important.

So let’s check out the very basics together!

So, where is it and what does QF stand for?
QF stands for Quadratus Femoris.

Whaaaat?
Quadratus = square-ish
Femoris = attached to femur, thigh bone.

You can find this at the back side of your body, close to your sit bone and it connects your sit bone to back of your thigh bone.
You know where your sit bone is, right?
Yes, the bone that sticks out when you sit on the floor and gets sore if you don’t have a cushion under your butt.

You have two of them and the actual name is ischial tuberosity…yeah, let’s keep calling them sit bones shall we?
Ischial tuberosity aka ‘sit bone’ is a part of the pelvis therefore, the QF connects your pelvis to your thigh bone, the longest bone in your body.

But what does it do?
The QF has many jobs, just like most of the muscles in the body.
The QF turns your leg out, which is very important for all those dancers out there. It also stabilises your pelvis (which is very important for those of us who have lower back pain!) as well as keeping your leg bone in the hip socket (hello, healthy hip!)

All of them sound very important, right?
Especially for those performers who have hip pain, clicking hips or anyone who has been told that they have “anterior impingement of the hip”  
Our physio’s can help you to check what’s going on, and give you some at home exercises to do to strengthen our small but mighty friend in our butt.

Meanwhile if you want to kick start your QF work, there is a very cool exercise video on the PM youtube channel so check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXer3xXjuE4

Ai Sato