Flexor carpi radialis

A forearm muscle acting at the wrist

Flexor carpi radialis, often shortened to FCR, lies in the superficial anterior forearm. Its tendon continues toward the hand: the muscle’s location and the joint it moves are not the same thing.

The selected mesh lets you follow its overall shape. It does not contain a separately selectable tendon sheath or an animated wrist.

Sources: Elsevier anatomy

From the medial elbow to the metacarpals

Its proximal attachment is at the humeral medial epicondyle through the common flexor origin. Distally, the tendon reaches the palmar bases of the second and third metacarpals.

Neither the humerus nor these hand bones is present in this subset. The radius is a neighboring bone, not the muscle’s named distal insertion.

Sources: Loyola anatomy · Elsevier anatomy

Flexion and a thumb-side pull

FCR helps bend the wrist toward the palm and move the hand toward the thumb side, called radial deviation or abduction. Compare these actions with the wrist extension produced by the radial extensors.

The hand and wrist bones are not loaded here. Camera rotation changes the view, not wrist position; this model does not simulate contraction, tendon gliding or a range of motion.

Sources: Loyola anatomy

Nerve and blood supply

The median nerve supplies FCR. Arterial contributions include radial and ulnar recurrent branches; a simplified single-vessel label does not describe the whole vascular network.

Nerves and vessels are not loaded in this subset, so the text describes connections you cannot select in the viewer.

Sources: Elsevier anatomy · Forearm anatomy study

Read the model

Explore flexor carpi radialis in 3D

1. Trace the selected shape. Start isolated and rotate FCR. Compare its wider belly with the narrowing distal region without treating color as a tissue boundary.
2. Compare a nearby flexor. Choose Show context and switch between Flexor carpi radialis and Palmaris longus. Use Fade others to retain the surrounding bones as reference points.
3. Compare with the extensors. Select either radial wrist extensor in the structure list. Open its title to compare the attachment and action described in the companion guide.

Sources and editorial status

This guide uses independently written explanations with links to the evidence behind them. Source checking and specialist anatomical review are separate steps; the latter is still pending.

1. Loyola University Chicago — LUMEN, Flexor carpi radialis

   Attachments, wrist actions and median-nerve supply.

2. Elsevier Complete Anatomy — Flexor carpi radialis

   Location, attachments and radial/ulnar recurrent arterial contributions. Factual cross-check only; source text, images and models are not reproduced.

3. Anatomy of the nerves, vessels, and muscular compartments of the forearm, as revealed by high-resolution ultrasound. Part 1 (2021)

   Table 2: nerve and arterial supply of the forearm compartments. No ultrasound images are reproduced.

3D geometry and its separate license are credited beneath the viewer. References do not imply endorsement of this site.