As people get older, their muscles lose power — but how that happens changes over time. Younger adults mostly lose strength, while older adults lose both strength and speed, meaning different things go wrong in the body as we age.

As we get older, our muscles' ability to generate power might slow down before we notice loss in strength or size — it could be the first sign our muscles are aging.

As people get older, their muscles don't send signals as quickly when they try to move, which might be why they lose strength over time.

As people get older, their leg muscle power slowly gets weaker — and it starts to drop faster after age 60. A long-term study found that this loss speeds up with age and could be a sign of overall physical decline as we get older.

In older adults, how fast muscles can generate power matters more for staying steady on your feet and avoiding falls than how strong or big the muscles are — and it drops faster as you age.

Your muscles' ability to generate power—like quickly standing up or catching yourself—depends on how well your nerves talk to your muscles. These nerve signals weaken with age and illness before your overall muscle strength does, so power might be a better early warning sign of aging than just how strong you are.