Ariana Ince excels at two things: throwing the javelin and being an ergonomist.
She’s made multiple World Championship teams, she was a member of the Olympic team, and took home a gold medal at the NACAC Championships in 2018.
Two totally different entities with a common denominator: the passion that’s needed to be successful in each field.
But the road to becoming a javelin thrower as well as an ergonomist wasn’t as concrete and direct.
Ince played many sports growing up in the small town of Gonzales, Texas. She played football, was in the band and competed in track and field as well. She actually competed as a pole vaulter in college at Rice University. The challenges of competing in the pole vault led her to throw the javelin.
“In pole vault, there are so many variables that are constantly changing,” she said. “As an athlete, you’re constantly working on getting faster and getting stronger, all those sorts of things. But as you do that as an athlete, in the pole vault, other variables start to change. Your grip height starts to change, the size of the pole starts to change, where you’re running from starts to change.”
She admitted that she started using bigger poles, but she couldn’t get her hand all the way around them. She said she started to use the poles that the men were using due to the speed that she brought in and her height, which caused it to be a mental block. She said that the javelin didn’t present such issues for her, because the javelin stays the same size regardless of how much bigger, faster or stronger you get.
“That freedom to get bigger and faster at whatever speed you want to was a nice relief compared to pole vault where there’s so many different things you have to worry about,” she said. “Also, it’s ever so slightly easier to travel to the airports with javelins compared to pole vault poles, so that’s an added bonus.”
Ince got started in the event at the end of college and said that they’re advantages and disadvantages to starting the event so late. She says that the pole vault helped her build up the tendons and ligaments around the joints used to throw the javelin. Her progression has been nice and easy, and staying healthy is a big reason for that.
“My progress has been pretty slow and steady – I’m not a person that comes in and makes a four meter improvement in a year because I’m constantly getting better,” she said. “But part of that is that I’ve haven’t really had any major injuries, which is kind of a rarity in the javelin. I’ve never really missed a season for an injury, which is really fun and is something that until late I have really valued. That’s why even at 33, I’m like I can keep doing this as long as I want to. It doesn’t really hurt, I feel fine, I’m not nursing an old injury – I’ve got all that going for me.
Advantages and disadvantages to starting it later, but I think it’s part of the reason I’m doing it now.”
When she’s not throwing the javelin, she works as an ergonomist. She currently works for a workers compensation insurance company, but will be transitioning to working as an ergonomics consultant for N.C. State.
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Her role as an ergonomist is to serve as a problem solver.
“Any industry you can think of, people get hurt at work,” she said. “A lot of times, it’s not necessarily the workers fault, it’s typically the way their environment is designed or policies and procedures that are in place. My job is anytime a policyholder is having a number of sprains and strains and issues like that, I go in and help them problem solve where they’re coming from, and we redesign that job task so that the workers are less likely to get injured and/or the process is more efficient.”
While her job as an ergonomist is far different than throwing the javelin, she finds great joy in easing the burdens of those that she helps.
“The thing that I love the most is that I know I’m making an active difference in what people’s daily life looks like,” she said. “It’s not just manufacturing environments, but also seeing the difference in someone’s mood in an office ergonomics setup…watching that change and helping people live happier and productive lives is extremely fulfilling.
So it makes it easier to wade through the bureaucratic stuff sometimes, because you know at the end of the day your goal is to help people live pain free. So I think of myself as preemptive to a physical therapist or even a doctor – I want to try to prevent you from even having to go to those people.”
Going into ergonomics wasn’t the initial plan for Ince. She got her undergrad in civil engineering. She ended up at Texas A&M training for the javelin. She ended up speaking with a professor who recommended that she get into the Master’s program for Occupational Health and Safety, which led her to ergonomics.
Ergonomics and javelin are on two different sides of the coin, but Ince has found something in common with both professions.
“At the outset, they’re almost opposites,” she said. “But I think one of the things the javelin has taught me, and (ergonomics) kind of go back and forth – I think I have a pretty well-rounded sense of how the body works, so that helps me when I’m working with employees.”
Ince still has goals for both the javelin and her career as an ergonomist, which includes hopefully being in a courtroom. If Ince could give anyone else advice from what she’s learned from her journey, it’s to embrace the unconventional.
“Unconventional is fun,” she said. “I think the thing that I always struggle with is that there are too many people that want to tell you that what you’re doing is a sacrifice. It’s not a sacrifice if it’s what you want to do. If it’s what you want to do, then make that choice and do it, and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re making sacrifices because your goals and their goals aren’t the same.
If you change your mind and you don’t want to do this anymore, that is also fine. But don’t let anyone tell you about all of the sacrifices you’re making because it makes it sound like a chore, and not a fun thing you’ve actively chosen to do.”
