Whenever there is load increment on the structure, a new analysis cycle starts. This consists of one analysis cycle for gravity loading and the rest consists of the sum total of number of cycles required in the linear stage plus the number of cycles required to pass the structure from the linear to the nonlinear and strain hardening stage plus the number of cycles required in the strength degraded stage. The strength degraded stage consists of both analysis cycles during the load increment and load decrement stages. You can specify a lower number of analysis cycles to be considered during the strain hardening stage for the load increment stage only, which will be considered after pushover analysis enters into the nonlinear stage.