Joint · Foot

Interphalangeal joints (foot)

The joints out along the toes, beyond the ball of the foot. The great toe has one; each of the other four has two, a proximal and a distal. They are hinges of the same design as the finger joints — a pulley-shaped head in a matching groove, a collateral ligament each side and a plantar plate beneath — but with far less range and almost no independent control, since the toes are moved largely by long tendons arriving from the calf. Their value is postural rather than dexterous: they are what lets each toe lie flat and press evenly into the ground, and a toe held bent at these joints presses through its tip instead of its pad, contributing far less of that contact.