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CHICAGO - Perchance you, too, have had this thunderbolt of thought: This ol' garden is whuppin' me into shape. Is making muscle outta flab. Is teaching my ol' ticker a thing or two about how to pump it up.

Why, who needs the elliptical machine when there's a yew that must be yanked from where it's blocked the sun for the last many summers? Why mount the Exercycle, folks, when you can tuck a simple grocery bag of bulbs into your unforgiving claylike soil?

It is such clear-eyed thinking that nearly knocked me over one recent sweaty morn in the beds (that would be the garden beds, of course).

I can tell you, in fact, the precise moment it dawned on me that, hmm, I can ditch the gym on the days the garden boldly calls my name.

I'd been at it for the better part of the morning, had wandered out to get a little digging in, when one thing led to another. There I was with a crowbar prying up a rock - a rock I intended to and did, in fact, heave and haul from an unseemly spot to one where I can now tiptoe through my beds without crushing limbs or heads.

Being both curious and equipped with telephone, I dialed up a troupe of folks who know a thing or 10 about huffin', puffin', sweatin', panting.

I rang up the East Bank Club, long the pinnacle of fitness in Chicago, a town that doesn't blink at a pork chop the size of a steelworker's forearm. Then chases that down with double-decker pizza, and hot dog awash in neon-green pickle goop. Ah, but we digress.

Gretchen Collins, director of fitness at EBC, is no gardener herself, but her mama and papa are, so she obliged with this: "Over the course of a couple hours in the garden, if you're working the whole time, not taking long breaks, you would get the 45 minutes of moderate exercise that you need five times a week."

(Moderate, Collins defines as "able to carry on a conversation while engaged in"; vigorous, which she recommends twice a week for 20 to 30 minutes, would be an activity so challenging "you can maybe get out a word or two while doing it.")

She cautioned that low-back strain could be an issue when using the garden as your gym, and mentioned how she's watched her own mother kneel for long enough and at such odd angles that getting up becomes an exercise in overcoming stiffness.

The only other non-gym exercise that comes close to gardening, in terms of aerobic intervals and strength-training, she says, would be chasing young children, or grocery shopping, and those once-a-year sorts of uber housecleanings.

Jim Karas, fitness wizard, personal trainer to the stars (he's whipped Diane Sawyer into shape, and Candace Bergen and Emma Thompson too), author of the Nos. 1 and 2 best sellers, respectively, "The Business Plan for the Body" and "The Cardio-Free Diet," is the exercise man I was desperately seeking.

He is all over the notion of what he calls "compound movement," weaving a workout into your every day. Why stand there doing plain old bicep curls, he asks, when you could be hoisting a flat of impatiens, lifting and lowering a 5-gallon watering can or spending 15 minutes on your knees doing away with the dandelions?

All together now

"It's the big buzz in fitness right now. We don't treat an isolated muscle anymore. It just takes too much time. What everyone's preaching is how to stimulate as many different muscles in a limited amount of time," says Karas, whose fourth book is titled "The Seven-Day Energy Surge," (Rodale Books, 272 pages, $26).

"Picking up a flat of flowers and storing it on a window box is exactly like doing a squat, bicep curl and shoulder press," he explains.

"But keep in mind, we're talking the difference between really gardening and perusing your garden with a glass of wine. Don't kid yourself," says the straight-talking Karas, whose clients pay him upward of $500 per one-hour consultation for such no-holds-barred commentary. "If you're putzing around, it's not really exercise."

And, sans chablis, it's about the oldest exercise there is, he adds. "Gardening takes us back to the agrarian society we once were, when everyone weighed half of what we weigh now."

While Karas wouldn't pinpoint garden-to-gym-exercise equivalents - say, seven minutes of raking equals umpteen minutes on the elliptical (he said you'd need to strap on a heart-rate monitor if you really wanted to figure that out) - he did offer a big fat, tantalizing exercise physiology fact.

One hour of steady exercise - for instance, an hour on the treadmill at a constant speed - leads to four hours of what's called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (or "afterburn," which is basically increased metabolism while the body basks in the uptick from a good workout).

A better workout

But, according to Karas, exercise physiologists in a recent study showed that one hour of intervals - meaning the up and down of heart rates, interspersed with strength training - results in 72 hours of EPOC, or increased body metabolism.

"So, if you're really in your garden rigorously, you could get a far, far superior workout," says Karas.

Just remember to pull in your abdominal muscles, he instructs, and work at keeping proper body alignment - back straight, shoulders down, toes and knees pointing in the same direction, bending at the knees and the waist.

"Think of all the great gardeners, Katherine Hepburn strolling through her garden in her hat. Your garden people, the ones that come to mind, are always thin and fit," says my new best friend, Karas.

And that is why I am slipping on my ol' rubber Wellies and heading out for some sweatin' in the pure fresh air, where a rake and a trowel beat an Exercycle any day.

A gardener's guide to pumping iron

How many calories are you burning in the garden and what would you be doing in the gym to get the same burn?

(Calories burned based on 15 minutes for 150-pound individual)

8.5: Watering = Sitting in whirlpool

30: Picking flowers, harvesting vegetables, gathering garden tools = Hatha yoga/

stretching

51: Raking/bagging leaves = Light stationary rowing/brisk walking on treadmill

68: Digging/spading/turning compost

= Kayaking

85: Mowing lawn with a reel mower/tilling = Jogging/

walking/hiking/weightlift (Nautilus or free weights)

120: Trimming shrubs with manual cutter/weeding/

cultivating/planting seedlings, shrubs or trees (1/2 hour) = Running (5 mph)

___

Lifting

Picking up flats of flowers to plant is the equivalent of doing a squat with dumbbells.

Weeding

Reaching down to pick weeds requires the same muscles needed for a one-legged dead lift.Toting

Picking up buckets of water is similar to performing one-arm rows.

What garden activity is equivalent to a gym activity

Reaching and pulling

In calories burned and muscles worked, raking and/or bagging leaves is the equivalent of 15 minutes on a stationary rowing machine, working with a low pulley or exercise tubing attached to the bottom of a door, or brisk walking on the treadmill.

Kneeling and reaching

Kneeling and leaning forward to dig requires a strong core. You can strengthen yours by performing abdominal exercises with a wheel (or a towel on a slick floor also works). Start with an inhale, then exhale as you roll the wheel forward or slide the towel forward. Stop when you really feel it in the abdominals and lower back, then inhale as you return. Make sure to keep your arms fully extended at all times

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