Weight on front or back of feet
When discussing correct posture for standing still, you often hear people talk about standing on both feet and not placing all your weight on either one of them. However, beside positioning your weight left-to-right, you can also position it front-to-back. I noticed I naturally place most (say 75%) of my weight on the front of my feet. What do experts say about this?
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So there are a few things making this a difficult question to answer. Much of the in-depth research hasn't been done on healthy individuals (biomechanics of the foot), but where there's something wrong (pathomechanics of the foot). There is also a difference between what is theoretically best (found here) and what people actually do (sort of found here). Also, the search terms might not be readily apparent because the biomechanical word for "standing" is "stance" (eg "load distribution in stance").
The best models and papers I found were also behind pay walls (which my institution has access to), but I can summarize the information as follows:
There are 6 main points of pressure in the healthy foot: the heel, and the head of each (5) metatarsals:
The metatarsal head of the hallux (big toe, labeled 2 above) should take about 2x the pressure as the other 4 heads, which roughly balances the left to right load on the foot.
As far as front to back, the only reference I found that calculated an ideal position was the one I mentioned before, and seemed to indicate the heel should receive 52.6% +/- 1.36% of the load of the foot (Fig 7). Presumably the rest of the weight would then be distributed to the metatarsal heads as mentioned above.
I will say that was calculated with math I don't quite understand, and on a very idealized adult foot. It might be much more useful to ask the question: "How do people with healthy feet and gates distribute the load on their feet?"
That would go back to my second reference and give us this lovely figure: [Fig 1]
My final conclusion is that if you are concerned about your gate you should see an OT or PT. Check for uneven wear on the feet, and try to stay "balanced."
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