A Journey That Started With Water

It started in the summer of 2024 with a very simple problem:

It was too hot to train.

We were heading to the Croatian coast, so I started thinking about training in the water instead. I asked a simple question: what shape creates the most resistance when pushed through water?

The answer led me to a circle. Great. I can make a circle. Well… almost.

At the time, I couldn’t model it in 3D and didn’t own a 3D printer. Luckily, I worked with Primož — our office MacGyver who could somehow make almost anything. I gave him the idea and dimensions. He modelled it, printed it, and my first prototype was born.

315 mm wide. A massive handle. And a raised edge to catch even more water.

It looked perfectly reasonable. Until I took it into the Adriatic.

The disc was too big. The handle was too thick. And I had seriously underestimated my opponent: water. My relaxing summer workout had suddenly become a wrestling match with the Adriatic. 😄

But there was one important discovery. It worked.

About a month later, I was helping my brother lay tiles. Not exactly where you’d expect the next idea to come from. I picked up a cheap plastic tile trowel and noticed the handle.

Wait. That’s actually comfortable.

The open space around the grip gave the thumb a natural place to sit. So I went home, grabbed my first prototype and started cutting.

Cut. Try. Cut a little more. Try again.

And suddenly that terrible oversized handle started feeling like an actual ergonomic grip.

Apparently, part of the Aqua-Bend design process cost about €3 and came from the tiling aisle.

Prototype No. 2 was smaller — 300 mm — and this time the ergonomic grip was designed in from the beginning. The raised edge stayed.

I also added openings for a wrist strap, giving the hand more support when controlling the disc against the water. And that led to another thought:

If I can strap it to my hand, why not my leg?

Suddenly, my circle with a handle wasn’t just an upper-body training tool anymore. Things were getting interesting.

I tested it with my father. I gave it to friends who trained. The feedback was good. The resistance worked. The idea made sense.

So naturally… I put it in a cupboard for half a year.

There was one thing I couldn’t get past. It just felt too simple.

After all, I’d basically invented… a circle with a handle. 😄

Surely a new product should be more complicated than that? Apparently, I needed another trip to the sea to figure it out.

That was when I started showing it to people who understood movement from very different perspectives. My friend Hinko Mlakar, a physiotherapist, saw possibilities beyond fitness, particularly around controlled movement and rehabilitation.

Then, in November 2025, one of the next prototypes travelled much further than I did. To Denmark.

I sent it to Kaja Trifkovič, who brought a background in kinesiology, strength and conditioning, and was also a certified aquatic exercise instructor. At the time, she was completing her Master’s degree in Public Health in Denmark.

There was another little piece of history printed on that prototype: AquaFlow. That was the name before Aqua-Bend existed.

Kaja’s feedback was extremely positive. And like Hinko, she saw possibilities that went beyond the fitness tool I had originally imagined.

That was the push I needed.

From there, the experiment became serious product development. AquaFlow became Aqua-Bend.

The grip evolved. The geometry changed. Different resistance levels followed. Straps opened the system to more of the body. Eventually, one circle became FLOW, FIT and FLEX — and a growing library of Bend Sessions.

But underneath all of that, the original idea is still surprisingly simple.

A surface. A grip. And water.

Almost two years of ideas, prototypes, testing, cutting, doubting and starting again… to make a better circle with a handle.

And I’m completely fine with that now. 😄