Aura Move NZ

Aura Move NZ 🫶🏼Building a community that gets faster and stronger together. Content to help you become a confident, skilful swimmer for life.

Aura Move helps adults be more confident, faster athletes for life. Created by former New Zealand swimmer and surf lifesaver, Laura Quilter, Aura Move provides swim and strength programming, coaching feedback, and support to improve swim technique and fitness. From coach Laura-

"I had some incredible experiences as an athlete, yet I've developed more appreciation for swimming since finishing my c

ompetitive pursuits. As a beginner surfer, for example, I feel confident in the swell and have good paddle stamina. My vision for creating AURA Swimming is to empower people to enjoy aquatic activities with confidence and skill."

28/08/2026

👀 Sighting is one of the most underrated skills in open water swimming.

You swim straighter, feel more in control, and feel more confident in open water by understanding where you are in your environment.

Get it wrong and you add distance, break your rhythm, and waste energy.

Here are three techniques and when to use each one.

Crocodile
Eyes lift just above the surface, nothing else breaks the water. Minimal drag, minimal disruption to your stroke. This is your default technique in calm conditions when you just need a quick check on your line.

Rolling breath
Sight and breathe in the same motion. As you rotate to breathe, glance forward first, then finish the roll to the side for air. It costs you almost nothing extra because you’re already turning your head. Best used when you’re sighting frequently, like navigating a technical course with tight buoy turns.

Polo
Full head lift, like a water polo player scanning the pool. You see the most this way, but it costs you the most too, more drag, a dropped hip line, a moment of lost rhythm. Save this for chop, for crowded starts, or any time you genuinely can’t trust a quick look.

The technique isn’t the point. Picking the right one for the conditions is. Most swimmers default to polo because it feels safest, then wonder why they’re exhausted by the first buoy.

Which style do you prefer? 👀

27/08/2026

🔥 3 Minute Core Blast Inspired by Dara Torres !

I did this routine frequently in my build up my first World Championships as a 33 year old coming off a 10 year break from elite level swimming.

It’s just 3 minutes in total.
6 exercises.
30 seconds each.
No rest between them.

It’s short. It’s brutal. The original workout is double the time and includes plank variations!

💪🏼 See what you’ve got.

👇🏼 Comment below and let me know if you make it through without stopping.

26/08/2026

Critical Swim Speed (CSS) 🏊‍♀️

CSS is your best estimate of threshold pace — the pace you could theoretically hold without your stroke breaking down. It’s calculated from two time trials: a 400m and a 200m swum at max effort, with CSS = (400m time − 200m time) ÷ 200 seconds per 100m. (If the formula is confusing, there are plenty of calculations available online)

How to perform a critical swim speed (CSS) test:
→ Warm up properly
→ Swim a 400m time trial, max effort , on your own (not drafting)
→ Rest 10-15 min or until you feel fully recovered
→ Swim a 200m time trial, max effort, on your own (no drafting)
→ Plug both times into the formula above

Why it matters: CSS gives you a personalised pace to build your threshold sets around instead of guessing or copying someone else’s numbers. It shifts as your fitness changes, so it’s worth re-testing every 6-8 weeks.

Once you’ve got your number, don’t just trust the maths — confirm it.

Swim 6 x 200m on 30 sec rest, holding your calculated CSS pace throughout.

This does two things: it tells you whether the number you calculated actually holds up over repeated efforts (fatigue and pacing errors in the time trials can throw the formula off), and it teaches your body what threshold pace actually feels like — the breathing, the arm speed, the effort level you need to lock in and hold. That felt sense is what lets you pace confidently in a race or a set without staring at the clock every lap.

Have you done a CSS test before? Drop your number in the comments 👇

🩱 wearing MOS 🏊🏻🤽🏾‍♂️🏊🏼‍♀️🤽🏽‍♀️
Discount Code: AURA10

24/08/2026

Shoulder pain in freestyle usually isn’t always a shoulder problem… it can be a scapula problem.

Your shoulder blade isn’t held on by bone, it’s held on entirely by muscle. When your arm goes overhead it has to rotate and tilt with you, in sync. If the timing is off, you lose space in the joint and that’s when impingement can happen.

Often the upper traps do too much, serratus anterior and lower trapezius do too little.

Here are 3 moves to start improving scapula movement.
10x reps each, before you get in the water:
- Wall slides for serratus anterior
- Prone Y-raises for lower trapezius
- Banded external rotation at your side, no shrugging, for pattern control

Snippets from camp in the Maldives with Effortless Swimming

22/08/2026

Your scapula moves through six directions. Swimmers who have poor scapula control or weakness through the shoulder stabilisers have a weaker stroke and are more prone to pain.

Controlled articular rotations (CARs), are a simple way to learn how to move the scapula and promote full range of movement.

CARs are done slowly with intention.

Do 5 slow circles each direction, each side, daily.

What you’re training isn’t flexibility. It’s proprioception, your brain’s map of where your scapula actually is and how to move it independently of your arm. That map is exactly what you’re using at the catch, when the scapula should be setting and upwardly rotating before the arm ever starts pulling, and at the finish, when it should be retracting to give your lat and pec something stable to pull against.

If you can’t feel your scapula moving through a slow, controlled circle on land, you can’t control it at race pace in the water.

Try this before your session and notice what changes at the catch.

📹 Video from the mobility session I led at Effortless Swimming Maldives Swim Camp

21/08/2026

Why I think all swimmers should add quadruped variations to their strength program:

Swimming demands rotational stability, not just strength. Every stroke cycle creates torque through your trunk as opposite arms and legs move — if your deep core can’t resist that, you lose energy into hip sway and drop out of streamline.

Bird dogs (a variation of the quadruped position) trains anti-rotation and anti-extension control while limbs move independently. It targets the muscles that stabilise your stroke — multifidus, transverse abdominis, and glutes.

Coaching tip: drive leg extension through the glutes, not the lower back. If your spine arches as the leg lifts, your glutes aren’t doing the work.

Slow, controlled reps first. Add load and tempo once you’re stable 🧱

Proud to wear MOS 🏊🏻🤽🏾‍♂️🏊🏼‍♀️🤽🏽‍♀️
🩱 Code AURA10 for discount

19/08/2026

🔥 How far can you kick in submarine position?
Test it out at your next swim!

How far did you kick before you ran out of breath?
- 0m
- 10m
- 15m
- 25m
- 50m+

Comment below! 👇🏼

17/08/2026

Vertical Freestyle Kick in Streamline 🏊‍♀️ (advanced drill)

One of the best drills for building a strong, connected kick.

Why it works:
- Forces the kick to come from the hips, not the knees
- Exposes limited ankle flexibility and low core engagement
- Translates directly to a tighter, more efficient kick

Cues to focus on:
✔️ Proud posture, Core engaged— no bending at the hips
✔️ Small, fast kicks from the hip, not the knee
✔️ Pointed toes, relaxed ankles

Try 4 x 20–30 seconds with full recovery between reps. If you’re sinking fast, that’s your sign your kick needs work — not your lungs. 💪

07/08/2026

🦋 The Biondi drill

I like this drill for a number of reasons, but I use it mainly for kick and pull timing. You get a feel of the two-kick pattern: the powerful kick that drives the pull, and the snappy second kick to help surge the body forward.

Try it as straight Biondi for a length, then Biondi plus one (one Biondi cycle, one normal fly cycle) to bridge it back into full stroke without losing the timing you just built.

🧐Did you know where the name “Biondi” comes from?

It’s named after Matt Biondi, an American swimmer who won 11 Olympic medals between 1984 and 1992. The exact story of who first named the drill after him isn’t well documented, but it’s a fitting tribute — a drill that rewards exactly the kind of underwater feel and power he was known for.

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