Anatomy of a Foot

Are you suffering from any feet or knee problems? Injuries in our feet or knees are one of the most painful problems that we may face and which also have an adverse effect on our complete lifestyle and work. Thus, if you need to understand your pain, then most primarily you need to first understand the anatomy of your feet.

Could you have ever imagined how complex our feet structure can be? Our foot is made from about 26 bones each. But precisely counting, there are 28 bones in each foot if we also consider the two big toe joints. All these bones are further categorized into three sets based on their location in our foot. These categories include the following names.

• The Phalanges or the forefoot: The phalanges are the toe bones which are in total made of about 14 bones.
• The Metatarsals or the forefoot: The Metatarsal bones are also called as the forefeet bones that consists a total of about 5 bones in each foot. Just below the head of the first metatarsal, there are two small round shaped bones that are called as the sesamoids.
• The tarsal or the midfoot: Each foot in our body consists of 7 tarsal bones.
• And finally the hindfoot that is made of the three joints which form the ankle and the numerous joints which are the main reason due to which we are able to walk and perform all our daily activities. These joints have been discussed here below.

These tarsal bones include 3 types of cuneiforms i.e the medial tarsal, intermediate and the lateral tarsal bone. It also consists of a cuboid bone, a navicular bone, and finally a talus bone which is situated exactly below the ankle joint.

In the structure of our feet, there are three main joints that help us in doing all the movements and also oerform all our daily activities. These joints include the subtalar joint, the midtarsal joint and the first metatarsophalangeal joint.

• The subtalar joint: The subtalar joint lies in between the heel bone also called as the Calcaneous and the bone just below the ankle joint which is called as the talus.

• The midtarsal joint: This is a joint that in reality is a combination of two joints which are the joint of the talus and the navicular bone and the joint between the calcaneus and the cuboid bone.

• The first metatarsophalangeal joint: This joint, occurs between the first metatarsal and the great toe.

All these bones and joints are further covered by the numerous muscles and ligaments at different places which altogether perform numerous functions.

There are in total about 20 different muscles in our foot which cover the bones and also provide them the specific shapes. The main muscles of our foot include, the anterior tibial, the posterior tibial, the peroneal tibial, the extensors and the flexors.

Due to the combined functioning of all these bones and muscles, we are able to move our legs in all the directions properly.