Humans evolved to walk with an extra spring in our step, shows foot arch study frontiersin
for a flexible arch that made walking more efficient too. This discovery could even help doctors improve treatments for present-day patients' foot problems.
The scientists created rigid models and compared them to the measured motion of the foot bones to test the effect of arch mobility on adjacent joints. They also measured which joints contributed the most to arch recoil, and the contribution of arch recoil to center of mass and ankle propulsion.
The scientists also found that the joint between two bones in the medial arch, the navicular and the medial cuneiform, is crucial to the arch's flexibility. Changes to this joint could help us track the development of bipedalism in the hominin fossil record.seems to allow us to walk and run upright instead of either crouching forward or pushing off into the next step too soon," said Dr. Michael Rainbow of Queen's University, senior author.
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