Answer: For most people, their second toes are longer but if your big first toes extend farther, you possess a natural advantage in skiing, sprinting and certain other sports, says Peter Weiss in "Remarkable Feets" from "Exploring Magazine." Now you can more readily lean your full body weight onto your big toes, great for rapid acceleration or for planting them to cut an edge. "Your big toe can exert about twice as much force as your second toe."

Footwork forms the foundation of most sports — as springs and levers that cushion and propel you (football, soccer), as launching pads for leaping (basketball, volleyball), or as brakes and pivots for side-to-side motion (tennis, aerobics).

Other special endowments: The first metatarsal bone in some feet hangs slightly lower, also aiding in pushing off but risking bruises or fractures under repeated pounding, as in long-distance running. Rigid feet are better suited for sprinting and jumping, flexible feet for racquetball and tennis, says San Francisco podiatrist Richard Blake. Yet while most of us miss out on the big-toe edge, concludes Weiss, we all gain from the foot's varied ancestry and "its remarkable versatility for almost any kind of sport."

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Send STRANGE questions to brothers Bill and Rich at strangetrue@compuserve.com, coauthors of "Can a Guy Get Pregnant? Scientific Answers to Everyday (and Not-So- Everyday) Questions," from Pi Press.