Our Wonderful Feet: 3 Videos

Nearly a quarter of the body's bones are in our feet. These bones have wonderful names

I remember the tarsal bones with the mnemonic "Tiger Cub Needs MILC"

T: talus; C: calcaneus; N: navicular; M: medial cuneiform; I: intermediate cuneiform; L: lateral cuneiform;

C: cuboid. I love the springy, powerful, playful image that this memory aid brings to our foundational limbs.

I have a special fondness for the navicular: the little boat, and though the cuneiforms are supposedly named for their wedge shape I love to think of them as ancient scripts - our earliest writing system - leaving their mark on the world through our footprints.

The metatarsals and phalanges as words are much less poetic, luckily our feet are incredible.

Each foot transitions between two shapes to create both a rigid spiralled lever for push off and a flexible shape for absorbing our weight as we walk. Supination is our lever position, pronation is our absorption position. And the reason why I wear barefoot shoes is so that my spiral motion is not restricted. I want to be allowed to move in and out of pronation and supination easily. Stiff shoes prevent our feet from doing this which increases strain on the ankle the knee and ultimately weakens our feet. Here are three foot classes for you to watch and enjoy, I hope by the end that you have a new appreciation for our marvellous feet.

Our ankle joint. A class with a whole lot of toe pointing and foot flexing in it.

The Subtalar Joint - a class about the heel and how it helps the foot move from a foundation to a lever.

The Foot Spiral

Enjoy

xx

P