STAMFORD -- At the Longevity LLC gym on Research Drive last week, Christian Tapia held up boxing mitts and let 9-year-old Daniel Sweeney swing away.

Tapia, a certified personal trainer, corrected Daniel for dropping his arms between punches, which reduces healthy cardiopulmonary exertion.

"There you go," Tapia said. "Your big brothers will have to watch out."

The workout alternated periods of cardiopulmonary exercises such as boxing, which are more strenuous, with less taxing exercise using nylon traps to build upper body strength.

"I feel stronger," Daniel said.

After spending a little more than a decade building a client base for his personal training and massage therapy services, Tapia reached his long-held goal last year of opening his own office and workout facility at 100 Research Drive along a strip of road dominated by home improvement and other service businesses.

"This has always been the light at the end of the tunnel," Tapia said. "I still visit clients in their homes but I've always wanted to have my own location."

Tapia said his clients start with all levels of fitness and include all ages, but a significant group of customers are adolescents.

Tapia said that better performance and resistance to injury for all athletes is strongly linked to proper strength and flexibility among the correct muscle groups.

"I see a lot of student-athletes who are multi-sport athletes who come to me and are not training their muscle groups in the right way," Tapia said. "There is a proper way to train from sport to sport."

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