Impact of swing on the foot arch

Abstract

Swing is consider across his simpliness as
complex exercise, which brings a lot of
benefits. How swing effects the arch of foot
is according to available resources little
explored area. With weakened muscles,
the arch decreases (flattening) even during
the standing, resting phase. According to
Hoke, no mechanism can replace the
function m. posterior tibialis, m. tibialis
anterior a m. flexor hallucis longus while
maintaining the arch. The researchs shows
that the occurrence of flat and high foot
can be considered serious even in the
younger population, which formed a
sample in our research. Improper arching
of the foot arch can also result in incorrect
posture. That is why we decided in our
research to focus on this possible effect of
the kettlebell swing exercise. The main aim
of our research was to find out the effect of
the swing exercise on the arch of the foot
and how a possible change in the footprint
taken by the podoscope will show. On
research has participated 16 respondents,
most of them active sportsmen. Arch of
foot was evaluated befor beginning of six
weeks cycle of doing swing exercises three
times per week and after at the end of the
cycle by podoscope. The pictures captured
by podoscope were evaluated by
Chippaux-Smirak index, which
characterized level of arch. After the anlysis
of results has been shown statisticaly
important effect of swing on arch of foot.
In flat foot has been shown effect of
increasing its arch and at high arch has
been shown the oposite effect decreasing
its arch. Partial aim was to find out the
subjective feelings of the respondents after
the end of testing, where lots of
respondents experienced improvements in
different eras. These findings by our
research are opening the use of swing even
as possible tool fot therapy or prevention
of problems with foot arches.