text: Chapter 5
  different training scenarios that provide a basis for specific unit and individual training programs. For all
  these templates, the performance objective has success in combat.
  5-7. Across a Soldier’s career span, periodization will guide optimal medical and performance readiness.
  This approach to building the Soldier promises to avoid costly, unprogrammed attrition and suboptimal
  readiness measures such as undertraining, excessive fatigue, overtraining, illness, and injury.
  TRAINING CYCLES
  5-8. Peak performance is attained and maintained by scheduling training through deployments with varying
  periods or cycles of maximal and submaximal training. If the Soldier has no scheduled combat deployment,
  the cycles can repeat at sub-peak levels to build or sustain very high foundational readiness. These cycles
  cause changes in the Soldier’s physiological and psychological statuses that lead to improved readiness.
  Training schedules are built on the following progressively longer periods of micro-, meso- and macrocycles.
  MICROCYCLE
  5-9. The microcycle consists of the detailed daily training structure across two to fourteen days. The days
  in the microcycle alternate between endurance and strength sessions as well as between training and recovery
  sessions. Leaders develop these training cycles in conjunction with the operations planning process described
  in FM 7-0. FM 7-0 uses the operations process conducting training events in a step-by-step approach to help
  commanders and other unit leaders train their Soldiers. With a focus on readiness and high levels of training
  proficiency, FM 7-0 provides the how-to processes of unit training along with practical applications. Leaders
  complete this meticulous planning well prior to the start of training. For subordinate units to develop their
  own training plans, each headquarters publishes their unit training plan well in advance. This is done not just
  for subordinates to plan training, but to allow time for leaders to get certified and to reserve the necessary
  training resources. For training to be effective, the necessary resources must be available at the right point in
  the training cycle. Prior to the start of training, detailed planning for each training event must occur. The
  company commander refers back to each event’s training objectives and uses weekly training meetings to
  assess the training that has occurred and to coordinate activities for future events. There is little difference
  between unit training plan development and building a physical readiness plan.
  MESOCYCLE
  5-10. Within the macrocycle, shorter periods of training called mesocycles are the main, medium-sized
  building blocks of training. The mesocycle lasts from two to six weeks. Each mesocycle aims to establish a
  new level of physical readiness—residual fitness—that carries over into the next cycle. As the training is
  accumulated and absorbed, the Soldier gets fitter. As deployment nears, physical readiness begins to peak
  and mesocycles are structured to allow accumulated fatigue to dissipate without a loss of residual fitness.
  This pre-deployment period of one to two weeks, often known as a taper, keeps the intensity and specificity
  of exercise high while reducing frequency and duration of training. The physiological response is called
  supercompensation.
  MACROCYCLE
  5-11. The longest period, usually lasting a year or more, is referred to as a macrocycle. This duration of
  training builds readiness towards a single peak within that time span. A twenty-year Army career would
  include multiple macrocycles. The goal for all Soldiers should be to complete their service in peak condition.
  5-12. Training periods described in this doctrine feature base period characterized by higher training volume
  and more training variety. Base periods transition to build periods and then to pre-combat and combat cycles
  that feature much less volume and higher intensity. These later periods feature training specific to the
  essential physical and nonphysical tasks required in the combat mission (see table 5-1).