We investigated whether a novel quantitative MRI protocol can reveal new aspects of structural and biochemical muscle pathology in three classic MFM subtypes.<h4>Methods</h4>MRI of the lower legs was performed in nine MFM patients with filamin-C (FLNC; n = 5), desmin (DES, n = 2) and LIM domain binding 3 (LDB3; n = 2) gene mutations, one patient with non-MFM, filamin-C related distal myopathy (4 males, 6 females, 51.0 ± 7.7 years) and 10 age-matched healthy control subjects (5 males, 5 females, 50.0 ± 11.0 years). Here, DES is linked to distal myopathy.