The skip in the human footstep – the flexing of the arch with each step – does little to help carry the body forward, a new study has found. Instead, it serves to keep the ankle upright, so that we walk in the characteristic way of human beings and not like other apes.
The finding overturns conventional wisdom and may help in the treatment of people whose arches have become rigid due to illness or injury.
“We thought originally that the spring-like arch helped to lift the body into the next step,” says Lauren Welte, a researcher at UW-Madison and the first author of the study, in a press release. But the project found that “the spring-like arch recoils to help the ankle lift the body,” she says.
The subtle flexing acts as a linchpin for humans to remain upright, the team from Canada, the United States, Sweden and Australia ...
