Human leg in a straight line, which represents the mechanical longitudinal axis of the leg, the Mikulicz line. This line stretches from the hip joint (or more precisely the head of the femur), through the knee joint (the intercondylar eminence of the tibia), and down to the center of the ankle (the ankle mortise, the fork-like grip between the medial and lateral malleoli). In the tibial shaft, the mechanical and anatomical axes coincide, but in the femoral shaft they diverge 6°, resulting in the "femorotibial angle" of 174° in a leg with normal axial alignment. A leg is considered straight when, with
Ball and socket joint the femur (ball) rests in the cup-like acetabulum (socket) of the pelvis, and in the glenohumeral joint of the shoulder, where the rounded head of the humerus (ball) rests in the cup-like glenoid fossa (socket) of the shoulder blade. The shoulder includes a sternoclavicular articulation joint. Ball and socket joint The ball and socket joint (or spheroid joint) is a type of synovial joint in which the ball-shaped surface of one rounded bone fits into the cup-like depression of another bone. The distal bone is capable of motion around an indefinite number of axes, which have one common center. It