Mary Huber's wavy brown hair gently frames her face, which happens to be contorted at this particular moment into a grimace.

Trainer Luis Boscan is chiding her for too much talking and not enough lifting.

Jessica McGowan/Special (ENLARGE)
Mary Huber does leg presses at Athletic Club Northeast with assistance from trainer Luis Boscan.
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Related: • AJC Video Library on Strength Training Dos and Don'ts • Weekly exercise tip • Diet & fitness news and tips • Weight loss success stories • More health news MUSCLES TO FOCUS ON Because the body has hundreds of muscles, there is no way you can train every single muscle. Instead, focus on six main areas of your body: • The trunk, or core: includes the abdominals and the muscles in your lower back • The quadriceps: four muscles in the front of the thigh • Gluteals: three muscles in the hip and buttocks • Hamstrings: muscles that extend from the gluteus maximus through the thigh • Deltoids: muscles in the shoulder used to move the arm away from the body • Upper back: four main muscle groups that aid in arm movement and stability TIPS FOR WEIGHT LIFTING Get proper instruction in lifting before you begin. Incorrect movements can cause injury. Find a trainer, or go to a class to begin. • Start slowly. The older you are, the more muscle you will have lost. It will not come back overnight, so you must take your time. • Lift weights at least twice a week for best results, but generally no more than three times a week. • Take a day off between workouts. Your body needs time off to build up muscle.

"Mary, get to work!" Boscan tells her, and adds, laughing. "You'll never have muscles like me if you do all that talking!"

Huber knows she'll never have muscles like Boscan's, whose biceps, after all, are about the size of a small redwood. But the 55-year-old does hope to keep her bones healthy, increase her physical stamina and keep her body fat content low.

Like thousands of other women who grew up thinking that girls don't lift weights, Huber has been regularly training with weights. She trains twice a week with Boscan and works out on her own, too.

"I started doing it because I wanted to get stronger," said Huber, an Atlanta laywer who has been lifting weights for about eight years. "I was getting tired during trials and finding that I couldn't make it through a long trial. I was losing stamina."

Huber is far from alone. Strength training for women is the biggest growth segment of the fitness industry, said Dr. Miriam Nelson, director of the John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Tufts University and author of several pioneering studies that showed the benefits of weight training in women. By some estimates, as many as 25 million women are doing some form of strength training, although Nelson believes that number could be a little exaggerated.

The anecdotal evidence is compelling. Elite athletes like golfer Annika Sorenstam have added hours of weight training to their workouts. Washington power brokers are reported to work out together, and gyms throughout the country and metro Atlanta have added group weight-lifting classes and strength classes such as Pilates.

Those who coach elite, well-conditioned athletes are encouraging if not insisting that their players regularly work with weights to improve stamina and help prevent injury.

"What we see with a lot of our athletes is that they want to improve their power production, how fast they can move," said Chris Hirth, a trainer for the University of North Carolina. "As they get larger muscles, they gain power, which helps them strike a ball fast, run faster. It also helps with injury prevention."

While strength training is important for athletic competition, it may be even more so for daily living, Nelson and others said.

Slowing muscle loss

Women, like men, begin to lose muscle starting in their late 30s. During the 40s, that loss can be about one-quarter of a pound a year, and sometimes more. Over 10 years, a person can easily lose two and a half pounds of muscle.

That's one thing for men but something all together different for women, who typically do not have as much muscle to begin with.

Such muscle loss is a major factor in osteoporosis, Nelson and others believe, because bones weaken as they are asked to carry less and less weight. The muscle loss also contributes to falls in old age, a leading cause of accidental death in people 65 and older. And it depletes's a woman's energy and ability to enjoy routine activities.

Strength training, on the other hand, actually helps a women get a more youthful body, Nelson said. It restores muscle mass lost to the natural aging process.

Also, Nelson's studies have shown that weightlifting not only relieves symptoms of osteoporosis and arthritis but also helps symptoms of sleep disturbances, Type II diabetes and depression.

Strength training, which usually consists of weightlifting but also incorporates core body training, works because new muscle tissue is produced when muscle cells are required to lift something heavy on a repetitive basis.

The load, or the amount of weight lifted, signals muscle cells to produce more protein. (This can't happen just from consuming more protein, Nelson said.)

The extra weight from the load also causes subtle neurological changes in the muscle tissue, Nelson said, helping the fiber to become more synchronized.

It is those subtle, cellular changes that lead to better balance and strength over a period of time, sometimes months.

You can't 'look like a man'

We're not talking beefcake here, nor are we talking hours upon hours of extra work in a gym. Women can add extra muscle mass by exercising at least six main muscle groups, Nelson said, two to three times a week. After initial instruction on proper usage and form, a person can lift weights at home. Many, like Huber, prefer to work with a trainer for motivation, and some work out in group classes.

Women need not fear that they will bulk up like a man.

"I used to hear them say, 'Oh, I don't want to look like a man,' " trainer Boscan said. "And I tell them they cannot."

That's because women do not produce as much testosterone, which contributes to muscle growth, as men.

The bad news in all of this, of course, is that it means one more thing to do for already harried people to try to stay healthy. Experts recommend weight training in addition to regular, aerobic exercise.

Elizabeth David, an exercise physiologist with the Cooper Aerobic Center and also a wellness director for Chick-fil-A, said she coaches people to start small, doing a few push-ups or stretches before going to bed, and learning exercises to do with resistance bands.

"You can do those on the road even, when you're watching the news," David said.

Nelson said that this strength training is one activity, however, where the strain really is worth the gain for women.

"It has so many benefits," she said. "Becoming physically strong as a woman in incredibly empowering."