Can you call something a trend when you see it twice? If so there is a trend in top-flight cricket at the moment for fitness boot camps.

But are they any good?

What with Pakistan joining Australia as the latest International side to turn to the Army for fitness advice, can clubs learn from this too? (Thanks to Scott for sending me the news item)

I have my doubts.

Fitness is not something you can compartmentalise. It's not as task to put on the to do list only to tick off when it's done.

To me boot camps send a message to cricketers that fitness and healthy living is a necessary evil: Something you try once a year then get back to the important job of playing cricket. That's the wrong message.

Being fit for cricket takes 24 hour commitment, even for club players.

It's about how you train all year round in a periodised approach, it's about adapting your body over time, it's about eating right all week and getting enough sleep. It's about making strength and speed as important as technique.

A boot camp can teach you that you need to do these things, but it can't keep track of you once you leave.

Like teenage tearaway boot camps, they may work in the short term but in the long run you have to do it yourself.

If you are serious about your game there is no other way.