Which term describes a short-term training phase lasting about one week?

• A. Macrocycle
• B. Mesocycle
• C. Microcycle
• D. Phase

Answer: (C)

Organizing training into cycles by duration, a week-long block is a microcycle. It acts as the week-to-week building block of your plan, focusing on a specific training aim and including the planned sessions, rest days, and how loads progress within that week. The macrocycle, by contrast, covers a season or year—your long-term plan that frames several mesocycles. A mesocycle is an intermediate block spanning multiple weeks to a few months, tying together several microcycles to develop a particular attribute or achieve a broader goal. The term phase is a broader stage within periodization used to describe a period with a general objective, not tied to a single week. So the short-term training block lasting about one week is best described as a microcycle.