Name the three connective tissue layers surrounding a skeletal muscle from outside to inside.

• A. Epimysium, Perimysium, Endomysium
• B. Endomysium, Perimysium, Epimysium
• C. Perimysium, Epimysium, Endomysium
• D. Endomysium, Epimysium, Perimysium

Answer: (A)

Outer layer is the epimysium, a dense connective tissue that surrounds the entire muscle and often blends with tendons or aponeuroses. Inside the muscle, the next sheath is the perimysium, which subdivides the muscle into fascicles and houses larger blood vessels and nerves that serve each fascicle. At the level of each individual muscle fiber, the endomysium wraps around the fiber itself, containing capillaries and satellite cells and providing a network for nerve innervation to reach the sarcolemma. This arrangement—from epimysium to perimysium to endomysium—allows force to be transmitted from many fibers through the connective tissues to the tendon while maintaining separate metabolic environments for each fiber bundle.