In a for loop, the initialization section is executed only once when the loop starts. It typically sets up the loop control variable, which controls how many times the loop will iterate. The condition check and increment sections are executed with each iteration of the loop. The condition is checked before every iteration, and the increment occurs at the end of each iteration. The loop body is also executed during each iteration if the condition is true. Once the loop is initialized, it doesn't reset the loop variable until the loop finishes.