exploration: put foot down

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Slowly put your foot down with your lower leg vertical

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last update: 20.2.2021
Name: Slowly place the foot with the lower leg vertical

Instructions

  1. Sitting on a chair.
  2. By bending at the right hip joint, lift the right foot off the floor and let the lower leg hang loosely as vertically as possible.
  3. Lower your right leg slowly so that you can observe the following action closely.
  4. The front outer foot is the first to reach the ground (metatarsophalangeal joint area).
  5. As the right leg is lowered further, the contact area quickly spreads over the outer foot towards the heel and also towards the metatarsophalangeal joint area.
  6. It depends on the individual whether the heel makes contact with the ground first or the metatarsophalangeal joint area first.
  7. If all the parts of the foot that are normally in contact when standing are in contact, further lowering and later loading of the leg, e.g. with external weight, increases the pressure of all parts on the ground, but there is still an uneven distribution between the outer and inner foot.

details

  1. The experiment makes it clear that the tendency to inversion, which results from the minimal muscle tension when the muscles of the lower leg are not consciously activated, leads to a rather low load on the metatarsophalangeal joint area. This is not a useful prerequisite for a stable stance, especially in balancing postures. Stable stance is only achieved by using pronator muscles to create an even weight distribution between the inner and outer foot.