The foot is a masterpiece of engineering. Each foot has 26 bones, 100’s of ligaments, muscles and tendons. Many of these structures need to function alongside one another in a very precise way so that we can walk, run and perform a whole range of activities. The foot is a perfectly tuned biomechanical masterpiece as it must co-ordinate all of the functional structures so that it can function properly and effortlessly to carry out those activities. The foot did evolve to acquire those functions on a soft ground and not wearing footwear, so a few defects possibly crept in as feet was put into footwear and was forced to walk and run on the hard concrete surfaces. Small flaws which were not previously an issue began to show up in those shoes and on those hard surfaces. It is this that is responsible for so many of the conditions that podiatrists see in the foot today.

As an example, one of those problems is a approach known as supination resistance. This is considered as the force that's needed to lift the arch of the foot. If that force is high, then the muscles and tendons need to work harder and the ligaments have a lot more strain on them. This might lead to pain in those structures as well as the development of a progressive flat foot. If that force is large, walking and running also requires more effort and can be really tireing. If that supination resistance force is too low, then it will be an easy task to raise the arch of the foot. This could result in more ankle sprains as it's very easy to tip the foot over to cause that. From this it should be clear that a fine balance is required between too high and too low amounts of force which is a good illustration of just what an engineering wonder the foot is and just how simple it is for something to go bad.