Bones you can feel
A hands-on tour of the bones you can find with your own fingers, from collarbone to ankle.
5 minutes · 6 stops
- Your collarbone
Run your fingers along the bar of bone at the base of your neck. That is your collarbone, a strut that holds your shoulder out to the side. It is one of the most commonly broken bones, usually from falling on an outstretched hand.
- Your breastbone
Press the middle of your chest. The flat bone under your fingers is the sternum, where your upper ribs meet at the front. CPR compressions push on its lower half to squeeze the heart behind it.
- Your shoulder blade
Reach over your shoulder and you may feel the ridge of your shoulder blade. It floats on the back of your ribcage, held mostly by muscles, which is why your shoulder can move so freely.
- The point of your elbow
The bony tip of your elbow is the end of the ulna, one of your two forearm bones. Your triceps pulls on it to straighten your arm.
- Your kneecap
Sit with your leg straight and relaxed and you can wiggle your kneecap from side to side. It sits inside the big tendon of your thigh muscle and acts like a pulley when you straighten your knee.
- Your shin and ankle bumps
The sharp edge down the front of your lower leg is the tibia, so close to the skin that knocks really hurt. The bump on the inside of your ankle is its lower end; the bump on the outside belongs to the thinner fibula.