how do the little bones and muscles in your foot and prosthetic feet react to different terrain?

Question: how do the little bones and muscles in your foot and prosthetic feet react to different terrain?
- Keywords:
  foot,
  prosthetic,
  terrain
Asked by olhall27 to Zach on 9 Mar 2017.
- Zach Welshman answered on 9 Mar 2017:
  
  The natural foot is very complex by design. It’s design (Mainly it’s soft tissues) allows it to adapt to any terrain. When your heel strikes the ground the foot is encouraged to open up and the muscles relax and as your weight moves over your foot to ‘ toe-off ‘ the muscles in the foot contract propelling your body forward.
  
  As for prosthetics it is extremely difficult to replicate this function, but I’m sure Ana could talk more on the Mechanical design of these prosthetics and the trade off between mechanical efficiency and actual human-like movement. In fact some of the work I’m doing could be used to evaluate the biomechanics of prosthetic devices. Food for thought for future work 🙂

Question: how do the little bones and muscles in your foot and prosthetic feet react to different terrain?