Help ease knee pain with these exercises

Your aching knee may be a symptom of osteoarthritis. The condition, which affects as many as half the people older than 65, is usually progressive.

Researchers at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics found that older people with strong quadriceps muscles were better able to ward off osteoarthritis in their knees and reduce the pain if they have it. The quadriceps are muscles on the front of the thigh.

Medical training Web site bigknee pain.com (Click here to connect.) offers this easy exercise to strengthen the quadriceps: Sit in a chair and extend one leg with your knee as straight as you can.

Tighten and hold your thigh muscles for about five seconds. Put your leg back down and relax for three seconds. Repeat with the other leg. Do the regimen 10 times.