How often a week should I train?
You ticked seven days, because in principle you can go any day. Now there is something in your plan every day, and that was not the idea. Behind your days sits a second question: how often do you want to train in a week?
When you can is not how often you want to
Two questions tend to end up on one pile. The first is: which days can you? That is availability — the days on which a session fits alongside work, family and the rest at all. The second is: how often do you want to train in a week? That is a number, and it is almost always smaller than the number of days you could.
Treat those two as the same and you are saying, without meaning to, that seven possible days are seven sessions. The number shapes your week; the days only say where that number is allowed to land.
With seven available days and three sessions it becomes, for example, Monday, Thursday and Sunday. The sessions spread as far apart as they can, and the four days in between stay free. Free does not mean "rest day you have to tick off" here: there is simply nothing there, so there is nothing to cancel either.
Why the answer sits between two and six
At one session a week there is nothing to build on. The adaptation from a session lasts a few days; if the next stimulus only arrives seven days later, you start over roughly every time. You hold on to something, but you do not move forward.
At seven no rest day is left, and the rest day is the day the progress happens. During a session you break down a little; in the days after, your body rebuilds it slightly sturdier. Train every day with the same intent and you keep building on something that is not finished yet.
Between those two lies the space where you actually choose. Two sessions hold a base, three is the point where a week starts to count for most people, and five or six belongs to those who already have a base and make the time for it. The number is not an achievement: three sessions you keep up for twenty weeks do more than five you keep up for three.
What happens when you miss a session
The week keeps the number, the day picks the content. If you did not go on Tuesday, that session does not vanish from your week: it gets its place back on a free day in the same week, as far as possible from the days that already carry something. What ends up there is decided again on that day.
That last part matters more than it sounds. A missed easy endurance run is not the same as that same run a day later. The extra rest may leave you fresher the next day, and then a stimulus does more for you than the easy session that was scheduled. Moving a session along is not copying it, it is choosing again.
Two things are fixed here. An easy endurance session is never made longer to make up for a missed one — fewer sessions means less volume, and taking that volume back in one go is exactly the spike injuries come from. And a hard session only moves to a day with forty-eight hours of space to the hard sessions before and after it; if that does not fit, the quality drops and the day stays easy.
What no longer fits this week does not carry over to the next. That week has its own number, and a week that has to catch up with the previous one is no longer a week but a debt.
And how long you have on such a day
Next to when you can and how often you want, there is a third question: how much time do you have on such a day? That number is an UPPER LIMIT and not an instruction. Put two hours on Saturday and it says two hours fit — not that you have to train for two hours.
So set the time that is really there, including changing, warming up and showering. A limit you overrun every week quietly pushes your training to the end of your day; a limit set far too wide leaves room you will not use anyway.
The limit counts per day and not per week. Two days of an hour are something other than one day of two hours: the first two give your body a stimulus and a moment to recover, the second gives one long stimulus. So anyone who wants a long run or a long ride in their week needs one day with that room in it.
How to pick your own number
Start from what you actually did over the past months, not from what you intended. Count the weeks of the last three months and take the middle number. That figure is honest, and it is almost always lower than the one you would write down.
Then raise it by one at a time, and only once the current number has felt ordinary for a few weeks. Three to four is a real step: a third more load and one rest day less. Three to five in one go is two steps at once, and then fatigue no longer tells you where it came from.
Do not pick more sessions than you have available days. If you do, your plan stays below it anyway — a number larger than the days you can train is not a plan but a wish.
What Trimetra does with this
In Trimetra those three questions sit under Training in Availability, each in its own block: your training days, your target number of sessions a week (from two to six) and your available time per day. Below the choice of the number it shows which days that becomes with your days. If you would rather not choose, there is Auto and the app derives it from your own history, with the derived number shown.
Once you have a few weeks with sessions behind you, a proposal appears among the calibration proposals: plan this many sessions a week, with the middle figure from your own weeks and the number of measured weeks alongside. You take it or you put it away. The app never applies it silently, and a proposal you put away does not come back the following week. A proposal to LOWER your number stays away as long as your week is on track or your running build-up is large; a proposal to raise it still comes through.
What counts as a session are the sports in your plan. A commute ride does not count, and neither does a short habitual walk — otherwise your daily loop fills your whole week without you having trained.
If you feel heavy or sleep short, the app may take a session off, never add one. And if you come back after a gap of a few weeks, it starts with a couple of short sessions instead of going straight back to your old number.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between my training days and my target number?
Your training days say when a session would fit; your target number says how many you want in a week. Tick seven days and pick three sessions and four days stay empty. That emptiness is the point.
Is four times a week better than three?
Only if you keep it up and recover in between. Four times is a third more load and one rest day fewer. If three times has felt ordinary for several weeks in a row and you are fresh the next day, four is a defensible step.
What happens if I skip a planned session?
Your week keeps the number: the session gets a place back on a free day in the same week, as far as possible from the days that already carry something. The content is chosen again on that day, because after an extra rest day a stimulus can make more sense than the endurance run that was there.
Why can I not pick 1 or 7?
At one session a week there is nothing to build on: the stimulus has faded before the next one arrives. At seven no rest day is left, and that is the day the progress happens. Everything in between is a real choice.
Do I have to train the time I set per day?
No. That time is an upper limit: it says how much fits on that day. A plan simply stays below it when less is needed. So set the time that is really there, including changing and showering.
Trimetra keeps your available days and the number of sessions you want apart, and spreads that number across your week itself. If something in your life changes, you move one number and the rest follows.