by Jacob Graves
Staff Writer

I had always imagined throwing a javelin would be a cakewalk. I have always wanted to learn how to throw a javelin, as to me the practice has always looked effortless. I was very, very wrong. I decided to take on participating in a track and field practice because four years ago, a student writer for the Print took on a student athlete workout, and it never happened again. I was intrigued by this idea, and coincidentally enough track and field had started up practicing, so I took on the challenge.

Dax Sizemore, a freshman athlete from Bend, Oregon, joined Clackamas Community College’s track and field squad this year as a javelin thrower. 

“I’ve lived in Oregon a lot of my life, I grew up in Bend and I’ve been to Portland and Eugene, but I didn’t even know what Oregon City looked like,” said Sizemore. “I wanted to enjoy a new experience and continue academics but I wanted to keep doing sports. So I decided to come here and I haven’t changed my mind since.”

Sizemore practicing the fence drill. Photo by Jackson Arterberry.

Editor-in-chief Evan Tichenor joined me for the workout; Sizemore began our conditioning by doing a series of stretches. 

“We’re just kind of getting our bodies warm, getting ready, getting our blood flowing. This is important because we’re trying to stretch our shoulders and our chest, getting mobile and flexible enough to hit the positions we want so that our body doesn’t crumble,” Sizemore said. 

After stretching, we started to do sprints at full speed, gradually slowed down, and then walked back to repeat the process. 

For someone who hasn’t run in quite some time — let alone played organized sports since my sophomore year in high school — I felt pretty good on my first sprint, though I was not the fastest. That is, until we did more sprints. I felt very winded and saw myself over the next couple sprints slowing down a bit. That was when I thought nothing in track and field was as easy as I thought it would be. I was gassed. And we were only on the warm-up.

After the sprints, Sizemore and two teammates began to set up hurdles. These hurdles were placed very close together, in such a manner that the hurdles were literally touching each other. 

These drills had us loosening up our hips and essentially swinging our legs one by one, then vice versa in an effort to stretch and work out those muscles. 

“These exercises are mainly to get the blood flowing in your legs, getting them loose and ready to run; just kind of to stay flexible and mobile,” said Sizemore. 

So we did a set of straight left leg up, right leg up over the hurdles and then we did the same thing but turned to the side. My form was off, but I thought it was a pretty interesting workout.

After that was when the real fun started. We walked into a shed of equipment, but the main aspect that caught my eye was a huge pile of javelins stuffed in the left-hand corner of the shed. 

We all ended up grabbing javelins and walked back to the track. 

The next drill was basically practicing the true, authentic form of throwing a javelin, and jogging down the track acting as if we were going through the throwing motion on the way back. 

“You’re trying to let your hips and your body just fall forward while your upper body is closed,” said Sizemore. “Your body will naturally make the javelin go in a spiral motion, but at the end of the day it’s all up to your preference.” 

Evan, Dax, and Jacob take a stab at perfecting their form. Photo by Jackson Arterberry.

From my experience, I learned that there really is much more to this than anyone could imagine. It’s pretty difficult to master, I don’t know how the track team does it.

Our next exercise was the fence drill, where we  had to stick the lower half of the javelin into one of the holes in the fence so it can remain stationary, and then twist your hips and act like you’re going into the throwing motion. I could definitely feel it in my core as I was trying to really master the perfect technique. I was going to throw a good javelin whether my life depended on it. 

We then finally made it down to the field where we practiced throwing “picks,” which are short javelin throws on the field where the goal is to have a nice arch on the throw and “pick” it right in the ground standing up. After going over the form with Sizemore, in which he repeatedly told me, “Don’t think about it, just throw. Just get loose and get some good reps in,” I was finally ready to attempt the javelin throw. I winded up, I turned my hips, I lunged my body forward in the throwing motion…

Jacob Graves practices throwing a javelin while Dax Sizemore watches. Photo by Jackson Arterberry.

And my javelin ended up horizontally in the air every single time.

I did not complete a single routine “pick,” however learning about it and getting some reps in was honestly pretty fun. I mean, it’s not every day you get to learn how to throw a javelin. 

To round off the workout, we walked to Randall Hall in which we grabbed some “javelin balls,” which look like some miniature medicine balls that actually weigh the same amount as a javelin, which honestly blew my mind. The goal was to practice the javelin throwing motion against the wall of the building, and I thought it was very interesting how the theme of most of these workouts is to essentially really practice on the correct form, over and over again. I noticed that even with my small sample size of working on the javelin throwing form that I definitely ended the workout better than I had started. Afterwards, the workout ended with about 20 minutes in the Randall Hall gym hitting a few shoulder workouts. 

And that was that. Fellow Print editor Evan Tichenor and I had officially completed a CCC student athlete workout. If it’s a couple things that I took away from this entire experience, it’s this:

1) Track and field athletes are very impressive at going over miniscule details in order to perfect their craft.

2) Do not underestimate any form of athletic prowess if you haven’t tried it at least once.

Evan and I hope to do this again in the winter term, with the basketball and volleyball teams being next on our bucket list for winter sports.