The foot is a masterpiece of design. Each foot has 26 bones, 100’s of ligaments, muscles and tendons. Most of these structures have to function alongside one another in a really precise way to ensure that we are able to walk, run and perform a whole variety of actions. The foot is a finely tuned biomechanical masterpiece of design as it has to co-ordinate all of the functional structures so that it can function efficiently and effortlessly to undertake those actions. The foot did evolve to have those characteristics on a soft ground and not wearing footwear, so a few imperfections probably crept in as feet was placed into shoes and it was forced to walk and run on the hard cement surfaces. Small faults which were not previously a problem began to show up in those shoes and on those hard surfaces. It is this that is to blame for so many of the problems that podiatrists see in the foot nowadays.

For example, one of those problems is a concept referred to as supination resistance. This is thought of as the force that's required to lift the arch of the foot. In the event that force is higher, then the muscles and tendons need to work harder and the ligaments have a lot more stress on them. This may lead to pain in those structures and also the development of a progressive flat foot. If this force is higher, walking and running also needs more energy and can be really tireing. If that supination resistance force is too low, then it will be simple to raise the arch of the foot. This tends to result in more ankle sprains because it is so easy to tip the foot over to cause that. From this it should be obvious that a fine balance is required between excessive and too low amounts of this  supination resistance force which is a great demonstration of just what an engineering marvel the foot is and just how easy it is for something to go bad.