About Us

Hi there, my name is Jade and I’ve been involved in the swimming world for over 35 years. I started as an athlete, going on to represent Australia and becoming a 3 x World Champion and 5 x World Record holder in breaststroke, before retiring and moving into swim teaching and coaching, among other things, since 2009. 

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In 2011, while in the process of making a return to competitive swimming following the birth of my second child, I was training. While warming up for a main set, my stroke felt terrible; I was slipping at the front. This was not an abnormal situation, in fact it was something I was used to and went about doing some sculling drills to isolate that feel and hold of the water. One of my go to drills over the years to help get this back quickly was sculling with finger paddles - no straps. I would spread half the length of my four fingers across the back of the paddle, leaving my palm and thumb free in the water. 

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As I was making my way down the pool, I didn’t have finger paddles with me, but felt I needed something more anyway. Something with a bit more resistance than the paddle alone created. I looked around and grabbed all the foam-based products I could; pretty much anything that would float and require some force to submerge. I had pull buoys, kickboards of all shapes and sizes, different sized balls and back bubbles. I tested them all in different positions and movements. The pull buoys and balls were good in terms of the resistance they created, but the surface wasn’t flat for my hand to be in an ideal swimming position. The kickboards were too big and cumbersome to control with one hand, even the junior kickboards I found still too large to be used by each hand independent of the other. The back bubbles, broken down into the individual segments by removing the straps, seemed closest to the mark, yet still not quite enough due to the type of foam (too malleable) and thickness of segments (too thin). 

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Knowing I was close to finding something effective, I contacted a foam manufacturer to learn more about foam and to test this further. Over time, it became obvious which type of foam was best and also the shape and thickness it needed to be. Additional time testing shapes and sizes resulted in the creation of Standard ONCORE. A completely flat surface with no straps or hand moulds, requiring the user to apply pressure with their entire hand evenly. Shaped around the hand but not too big, so each hand can be used effectively in an independent manner. With a thickness that results in a larger total volume needing to be submerged, meaning that the resistance at the point of pressure is specific to the hand. It worked perfectly, and I was instantly able to improve that lost feel and hold of the water in a way I had never experienced during my career. 

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I was teaching and coaching during this time so I had a heap made and started to use them with my athletes (aged from 4 years). Keeping it simple, I had them doing streamline freestyle kick, basic freestyle kick, single arm freestyle kick and single arm freestyle. I also brought them into backstroke kick-based drills. The improvement seen was instant and obvious. Body position was higher, more aligned, ‘straighter’, less ‘snake-like’ in their swimming, and in general, more connected to the water in their actions. Feedback from the athletes themselves included feeling stronger, smoother, holding more water, easier, higher, and for those unable to describe the change in words, it was a positive difference where they just ‘felt better’. 

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ONCORE was created through trial and error, based purely on feel by someone with proven swimming success as a World Champion and World Record holder. While science was not part of the process, it became apparent over the years that it is indeed part of the bigger picture. Having now worked with thousands of athletes, from learn to swim all the way through to Olympic Champions, who use the product coming away more connected with the water with instant positive changes in their feel, there had to be a scientific basis as to why. This became more evident knowing similar drills are being done with other training aids, particularly kickboards, without this same significant positive change occurring. 

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The significantly smaller surface area of Standard ONCORE, combined with its larger thickness, creates a point of resistance specific to the placement of the hand that is challenging, constant, yet controllable and therefore transferable to swimming unaided. 

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Would love to share more but that is enough from me!