Last Saturday, I took three showers.
One after morning basketball — a last-minute invite from a friend I couldn’t turn down. One after working in the yard for several hours, trying to get everything done before a trip later this week. Another one after an evening soccer game.
By any normal measure — sleep, energy spent, sore muscles, or the fact that I missed dinner — that was not a restful day.
⚡️ F5 Fast Files - Short Summary
Being good at it isn’t reason enough to do it.
Rest like the pros!
Eat the main course, then fill in with your favorites.
🔋 Good At vs. Energized By
My day job has a wellness committee, and one of the best things they’ve pushed is a simple distinction: What you’re good at is not necessarily the same thing as what energizes you. They push team leaders to assign people to tasks that align with energy, not just skill.
My three-shower Saturday confuses the normal math. Basketball, yard work, soccer, family time at the park — by sleep and physical exertion, that should’ve been my most exhausting weekend all month!
It wasn’t. That’s because we know the same thing the wellness committee does. Sure there was some hard work involved, even some things I didn’t exactly want to do. Turns out that was still a good formula for re-energizing! (Even better if I didn’t miss dinner!)
Rest doesn’t mean the absence of activity. Sometimes it just means the right activity.
🧊 Rest as a Verb
Here’s what pro athletes understand that many of us miss: Recovery isn’t passive.
It’s literally called ‘Active Recovery’. The pros don’t finish a game and just climb into bed. There’s nutrition timed specifically for muscle repair. Ice or cold plunges. Stretching. Massage. Then yes, a good night’s sleep too. Recovery takes as much intention as the performance itself.
Rest, in other words, is a verb.
Most of us don’t have a training staff walking us through a recovery protocol. That means the job falls to you 🫵 Figure out your own regimen, get the essentials like sleep and nutrition right then go do the things that recharge YOU.
🔌A day of Recovery
Growing up I definitely fell into “it’s called the day of rest for a reason!” and slept away a lot of Sundays. Sleep is an important dimension of rest, but what if we looked at the Sabbath as “the day of [recovery]” where we recharge spiritually.
Just like our active physical recovery, active spiritual recovery will surely include essentials like prayer, scripture study, and attending worship services, but then let’s fill in the rest of your regime with the things that energize your soul.
If Sunday is only passive, we’ve skipped the stretching and wonder why we wake up spiritually stiff.
⚔️ The Trifecta
Like my three shower Saturday, the level of effort wasn’t draining, it actually left me feeling full. The combination of who I was with, what I was doing, and why I was doing it had my heart in it.
Here’s the challenge for you and me this week.
Name your Saturday-style active recovery — the thing that energizes your body and mind, whatever that looks like for you.
Name your Sabbath-style active recovery — the thing that energizes your spirit and fills up your soul.
Don’t forget the main course essentials on either day.
Once you’ve got your two answers, bring them to the F5 Discord! It’s now live with a channel for all the F’s, accountability threads, a wins-and-shoutouts space, Fire Teams, and where we post events and announcements. 👇 Drop your Saturday and Sabbath answers in there, and let the rest of us hold you to them.
Justin
F5 Brotherhood
👇 If you found this newsletter valuable, please share! 👇
P.S - The LinkTree is still your hub for everything F5 Brotherhood