The anatomy of the foot

How is a foot actually built and what can we learn from the anatomy of our feet for everyday life? This is the question we want to explore in today's blog post. Our feet are a very important part of the body, but we take them for granted far too often. We need them primarily for standing and walking, but also for driving, playing sports, dancing and much, much more. Most of the time, however, we don't realize how important our feet are until it's already too late.

The foot is defined as the lower part of the leg and consists of 33 joints connecting 26 bones. Thus, about a quarter of the human bones occur in the feet alone. These strong bones ensure that the feet can support our body weight - this is an enormous achievement, but one that receives far too little attention! In addition, there are numerous muscles, tendons and ligaments that make the foot mobile. Not to mention the necessary blood supply and nerves in the skin that ensure the sensitivity of our feet.

Roughly speaking, feet can be divided into three sections: the tarsus, the metatarsus and the five free-standing toes. The metatarsus is also divided into the ball, sole, heel, instep and instep, with the heel, ball of the big toe and ball of the little toe bearing the most weight. The sole of our feet is covered with a thick layer of fat to help absorb shock. Because of the many joints, our feet are extremely adaptable and the tendons and ligaments help to transmit movement while also providing the necessary stability. The ankle joint forms the connection to the leg, allowing us to raise and lower our feet.
A large part of humanity is born with healthy feet, but the child's foot needs above all freedom of movement in order to develop optimally. Wrong shoes in childhood are therefore often the cause of later foot problems. Walking barefoot is best for the feet, so in summer we should simply do without shoes and give our feet some freedom.

And what do we learn from this? It goes without saying that you can't run barefoot every day, because closed-toe footwear is usually already mandatory at work. So when choosing shoes, you should make sure that the movement of the feet is not too restricted, in order to minimize the risk of subsequent damage to health. The nature of the materials also plays a role, so that your feet can breathe in the shoes and excessive sweat production is prevented.

Running without shoes should not be considered a panacea, however, because it obviously cannot correct congenital bone deformities. In addition, already damaged feet must not be subjected to too much stress, otherwise consequential damage can occur. In order to still have a feeling like barefoot with shoes, various manufacturers, such as adidas, DC or Nike, offer different models that have an extremely flexible sole and are also very light. For the warmer days sandals are recommended, which are processed in high quality and also convince with flexible soles.