The Development of the Longitude Arch Motor Function and its Biomechanical Contribution to Human Movement

This paper reviews the morphology and the movement mechanism of longitude arch in biomechanics, and tries to interpret the relationship among the function development of the muscles which support the longitude arch, different foot strike pattern during running, and the different functional effects of running shoes. The forefoot strike leads to relatively stronger foot muscles, so that foot muscles control the deformation of longitude arch during the stance phase better, and also has more active work during push off phase. The longitude arch needs more external support of rearfoot strike, meanwhile, the ankle joint stiffness could be increased, which causes more impact force transfer to lower limbs, therefore the supporting and cushioning function of running shoes are important. But this kind of running shoes might decrease the foot muscles function for long time. The lack of muscles strength of longitude arch could suffer the plantar surface to the risk of sport injuries during running, so the foot muscles strengthen could neither be ignored in arch functional trainings nor therapies after sports injuries.