Normal Foot Motion

Before we can begin talking about abnormal foot motion and the problems caused by abnormal foot motion it is first necessary have an understanding of normal foot motion.
There are three main phases of each footstep. The first phase of the step is called heel-strike. Most people first land on the outside part of your heel. If you look at the wear pattern on the bottom of an old shoe you will usually see that the outside of the heel is worn down. That is heel strike. As you put more weight on your foot you enter the mid-stance phase of the step. Mid stance is a very important part of the walking process. As you begin to load the mid-foot the foot starts to pronate. During pronation the bottom of the foot turns toward the floor and the arch flattens out a bit. As the foot pronates it unlocks all these bones here in the mid foot. At this stage the foot becomes what is often referred to as a “bag of bones”. This allows the foot to adapt to any surface it happens to be walking on, for instance, rocky surface, beach, pavement up hill, down hill. This pronation and unlocking is also very important for shock absorption. Pronation is very important.
As your foot goes further along in the step and you begin to load your forefoot the foot goes thru a motion called supination which is the opposite of pronation in which the bottom to the foot turns away from the floor. This supination now relocks the bones of the mid-foot and makes the foot into a firm lever arm to get ready for an efficient push-off also known as the toe-off phase of the step.
This is the normal foot motion. In the next post I will begin discussing abnormal foot motion and the problems that abnormal motion may cause.