Leg & Foot

Intro

The feet are flexible structures of bones, joints, muscles, and soft tissues that let us stand upright and perform activities like walking, running and jumping.

Each foot has approximately 100 working parts, including 26 bones and 33 joints.

Twenty-five percent of all the bones in your skeleton reside in your feet, and they work hard. Muscles, tendons, and ligaments run along the surfaces of the feet, allowing the complex movements needed for motion and balance.

One mile of walking places over 60 tons of stress on each foot. The average person walks approximately 1,000 miles per year. With every mile, a runner can absorb as much as110 tons through each foot.Serious runners often log 30 miles per week,pounding their feet with forces 3-to-5 times their body weight.

The muscular actions and collaborations of the foot, ankle, knee and hip are impressive and complex. They carry you through the day– when walking, running and completing other activities. They also have a crucial impact on your posture.

Therefore the relation of the foot, ankle, knee and hip to each other is important.

Together with a whole lot of tendinous fiber around the knees (a tough band of connective tissue), the muscle structure of quads, hamstrings and adductors keep your lower leg attached, and your knee in place. This same muscle group is connected to your hip and pelvic bone, to stabilize the whole body. The Achilles tendon connects the heel to the calf muscle and is essential for running, jumping, and standing on the toes.

Tightness in one leg either starting in your quads, lower leg, or arch of your foot can pull you all the way out of balance and cause pain elsewhere in the body.