The problems that appear in difficult math competitions such as the IMO or the Putnam exam are usually very difficult and require some ingenuity to solve. They also usually don't look like they can be solved by simply knowing more advanced theory and the such.
How do people typically come up with these problems? Do they arise naturally from advanced mathematics (the somewhat infamous 'grasshopper problem' from the 2009 IMO comes to mind - to my not exactly knowledgeable mind this problem looks like it popped out of basically nowhere)? What is the perspective that mathematicians take when seemingly "inventing" these problems with no theoretical motivation to them whatsoever?