Dave & Sonia

With a combined total of 30+ years within the Health & Fitness sector including Massage Therapy, Fitness Coaching and Rehabilitation, Dave and Sonia have a unique outlook towards the human body and the causes of pain. They look for the cause around injury and or pain, not just the symptoms related to it.

Their holistic view and out of the box thinking has enabled them to help many people return to everyday life post injury, surgery or life restricting conditions including strokes and head injuries.

Rest assured when choosing Rehab Coach you are getting the support of a team behind you. Both Dave and Sonia bring their own individual strengths to the table giving you the best possible chance at real results to make a difference.

Think of your rehabilitation as a journey you are about to embark on and they your support crew.

Sonia's Story

I am a Therapeutic and Sports Massage therapist with over 30 years experience. I was drawn to massage as having been an athlete and coach all my life, I wanted to be able to enhance performance and relieve soft tissue injuries via a “hands on” modality. I was always very intrigued with human biomechanics and love what the human body is capable of achieving. I am a problem solver by nature so love the challenge of establishing the cause of pain for people.

When I met my now husband Dave, it was a health and fitness match made in heaven. We both genuinely cared about helping others improve their overall wellbeing and through our own previous experiences namely personal injuries, were able to combine our strengths and resources to help people get results via our Functional Fitness gym that we closed after 7 years in order to be able to focus on what we love most and do best… rehabilitation.

My training started many years ago with obtaining a fitness trainers diploma through AUT. I have played many sports from a young age and have played at a representative level in most. From my early 20’s, I focussed solely on my chosen sport of Beach Volleyball and had a wonderful career representing NZ on the world stage. Having experienced many injuries along the way, I know better than most that as far as treatments go there is no such thing as "One Size Fits All".

I have been fortunate to have worked alongside and in conjunction with some amazing and talented coaches & practitioners including physios, chiropractors and osteopaths. One thing remains true.. where one treatment protocol works for one person will not necessarily work for the next. This is where Rehab Coach NZ comes in. Both Dave and I are outside the box type thinkers which has definitely helped us over the years with non uniform cases.

I hope that we can have the opportunity to make a difference in your life.

Dave's Story

Throughout my journey, I have encountered many setbacks and challenges. These have made me stronger in body, mind and most importantly for my clients, Knowledge.

Over the last 40 years I have suffered break's, tears, surgery's that at the time I wondered why these things were happening to me!

When I finally found my passion in fitness, then gym ownership and subsequently rehabilitation, ALL of these experiences became prominent in how I taught, Coached and helped people rehab their bodies.

I am also ADHD, I find that this is an amazing tool to helping others, it gives me a high amount of empathy, and while it stands for Attention Deficit, its actually the opposite and gives a hyper FOCUS on the client I am working with.

With this focus, it gives me a need to know WHY my clients are feeling the way they are, this gives me what I call rabbit-hole syndrome…… and I will research until I have multiple avenues to explore to find solutions.

Unlike conventional therapists I start on the outside of the box and work my way in, thus often finding a solution faster.

My knowledge is not just about what a textbook will teach. It is about how things should FEEL, and the only way to know what feels good and bad is to have experienced it, and I have experienced more than my fairs share.

In the years that I have been working with Rehabilitation clients I have had amazing success, this lead us to have the opportunity to work with Occupational Therapy company's which gives us ACC accreditation. This has us working with ACC clients as well as private.

We are privileged to be able to bring this to Northland, and very excited to be working with you.