Increased focus on ageing and the muscle-brain axis is appropriate not only because of the growing numbers of the aged but because we have increasing understanding of the malleability and limits of elements which compose it. This understanding is fueled by new sophisticated, often minimally invasive, ways to assess the brain and muscle. All types of movement from locomotion to fine manipulation require an interplay between sensory input and motor output that is controlled by the central nervous system. Failure within the brain-muscle axis is a direct result of ageing and this produces the major motor impairments which frequently accompany ageing, from falling to weakness. These impairments are also an end stage causing physical disability in many diseases. One impairment on which I will focus is the muscle weakness and reduced physical performance that typifies ageing. Here the impairment is related to serial changes along the axis from the muscle and related musculoskeletal mechanics, to the spinal cord and then to motor cortical and other supraspinal levels. Many of the age-related motor impairments can be investigated by acute reductions in physical exercise (disuse models) or acute exercise interventions which improve the impairment. New information about exercise prescription, muscle and brain plasticity, and even in the future adult neurogenesis, should provide ways to mitigate the deleterious physical effects of ageing.