Ideally there is a balance between workload and recovery. Workload includes training and competition. In overtraining there is not enough recovery for the workload sustained. Most athletes will see a decline in athletic performance which results in an increased effort (workload) to improve performance. Unfortunately, this leads to worsening performance as there is even less ability to recover. We refer to this situation as “athlete quicksand” where increasing the training effort results in a worsening performance. Treatment involves identifying the causes for poor recovery and making the appropriate modifications to training.