Scientists from King's College London explained the appearance of a springy gait in humans in the process of evolution. It turned out that it allowed them to run more efficiently, although it was previously believed that the flexible arches of the foot, providing such a gait, were necessary to raise the body and prepare for the next step. The results of the work were published in the journal Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology.

During the study, the authors selected seven people with different mobility of the arch of the foot. The subjects were asked to walk and run as normal while their legs were filmed on high-speed X-ray motion capture cameras. Also, each participant's arch height was measured, and the right foot was scanned using computed tomography. The researchers then developed models that were compared with measured movement of the bones of the foot to test the effect of foot arch mobility on adjacent joints. In addition, they examined which joints were most conducive to arch recoil, as well as the role of recoil in center-of-mass distribution and ankle movement.

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The researchers hypothesized that the recoil of the arch of the foot helps lift the body up. However, they found that a hard arch with no recoil either causes the foot to leave the ground early, reducing the effectiveness of the calf muscles, or pushes the ankle bones forward too much. Such a slope is more typical for chimpanzees, and not for humans. It turned out that it is the flexible arch of the foot that helps to put the ankle vertically, helping to effectively push off the ground. This effect is even stronger when running. It is possible that it was running that evolutionarily led people to develop a flexible arch of the foot.

The discovery provides new therapeutic options for people whose arches are stiff due to injury or disease, as increasing the flexibility of the foot may improve overall mobility. However, this hypothesis still needs more research to show that differences in leg mobility in most people lead to the changes that were observed in this sample.