From years of being obese plus my age is probably showing my knees crack and sometimes hurt. Does anyone have some exercises besides squats and lunges for these areas that won't bother my knees?

Sharon, there's a sticky in the Exercise forum that might be helpful for you: My KNEES! I feel so old....

Boy, do I feel your pain! My years of obesity and arthritis did a number on my knees too, and I'm stalling on knee replacements (just can't deal with the idea of surgery right now ). My doctor always tells me that the best thing we can do for our knees is to strengthen the muscles that support the knee. Check out some of the exercises in that thread for ideas. Because one of my knees is worse than the other, I try to do as many single leg exercises as possible so that each leg has to work independently and the weaker leg doesn't get a free ride off the stronger leg.

Best of luck to you and your knees!

Thanks Meg. I thought I had read all the stickies but I guess I missed that.

My physical therapist recommends exactly what Meg did - make the supporting muscles stong. He adds in strengthing hips as well. ANd it's not that you can't/shouldn't do squats and lunges, just be careful and don't go down too deep. Stop when it starts to hurt. I do squats using a stability ball all the time. The PT encouraged me to do these, and stationary lunges. Also leg extension and leg presses without using really heavy weights. Like Meg, one of my knees is much worse, and you'll be surprised if you switch to doing one legged things at how much the "good" knee supports the "bad" one. A real eye opener. Best advice I have is do it, but cautiously.

I can vouch that this works. From my snap, crackle pop aching knees that i introduced to squats gradually (still haven't progressed to lunges), I made huge progress and was able to get all the way up to running up the stairs in our house.