Here’s some food for thought: Did you know that the human foot has 26 bones, 33 joints, 107 ligaments, and 19 muscles (with associated tendons)?

The foot is a thing of marvel.  It has numerous articulations that allow fine control of your standing balance.  Yet, most of our footwear negates the articulated movement of the foot.  Stiff soles and super supportive–or more accurately, movement restricting– shoes haven’t necessarily been a positive modern invention.

Your feet also give you a lot of information about your balance.  With that many joints and muscles, there is veritable wealth of proprioceptive information coming from the feet and ankles.  We train the perception of the weight dropping to the center of the feet (center of gravity) and the 9 solid points (i.e. the 5 toes, 2 balls, outer edge, and heel) in contact with the ground.  Paying attention to and using the sensory information from the feet improves proprioception, body alignment, balance, and awareness of body orientation.