What activity type is a sauna or cold plunge on Strava?

Key takeaways

• There is no sauna, cold plunge, ice bath, or contrast therapy type in Strava.
• Workout is the correct type — it is Strava's generic, non-GPS category.
• A Workout activity counts toward activity totals but contributes no distance or pace.
• Because there is no temperature field, put the temperature in the activity name.
• Degree Daddy creates the activity as a Workout with the name pre-built from your session.

The short answer: Workout. Strava does not offer a sauna activity type, a cold plunge type, an ice bath type, or a contrast therapy type, and Workout is the only generic category that fits a stationary indoor session with no GPS trace.

Why Strava has no sauna or cold plunge type

Strava is built around activities with GPS traces and moving time. A sauna session has neither: you are stationary, indoors, and the thing worth recording is temperature and duration rather than distance or pace. Strava's activity list has never included a sauna, cold plunge, ice bath, or contrast therapy type, and there is no sensor that would detect one automatically.

The practical consequence is that recovery work is invisible on Strava by default. Someone doing four sauna sessions and five plunges a week has nothing on their feed to show for it, even though that is a real and deliberate part of their training.

The workaround everyone lands on is the generic Workout type, which is what Degree Daddy uses. What Degree Daddy adds is the part people do not want to do by hand: the duration, the temperature, and a title that reads properly, filled in automatically instead of typed in after the fact.

What Workout does to your stats

A Workout activity counts toward your total activity count and your total time. It contributes no distance, no elevation, and no pace, because there is nothing to measure — which is correct for a sauna or a plunge. It will not distort your running or cycling averages, and it will not appear in distance-based leaderboards or segment results.

If you care about keeping recovery visible without polluting your training data, this is the behaviour you want: the session is on the record, and it is not pretending to be a run.

Making the entry readable

Because every recovery session lands under the same generic type, the activity name is doing all the work. A feed full of entries called “Workout” is useless. A consistent naming convention fixes it:

• Sauna - 18:00 at 180F
• Cold Plunge - 2:45 at 42F
• Ice Bath - 3:00 at 40F

Session type, duration, temperature. That is everything Strava cannot store in a field, in a form that reads at a glance on the feed. Degree Daddy builds this name automatically from the session you logged, so the convention holds without you maintaining it.

How the Strava push works

1. Connect Strava once. Open Degree Daddy settings and authorise Strava. The connection persists, so this is a one-time step.
2. Track the session. Start the timer on your iPhone or Apple Watch. Log the temperature and, if you want, the venue and a rating when you finish.
3. Push it to Strava. Tap the Strava button on the completed session. The activity is created on Strava with your elapsed time, the temperature in the title, and a description.
4. Attach the session card. Degree Daddy saves a session card image to your camera roll and deep links to the new activity, so you can add it as the activity photo in a couple of taps.

Will Strava ever add a sauna type?

There is no announced plan for one, and the structural reason is straightforward: Strava's activity types are built around measurable movement, and heat and cold exposure have none. Until that changes, Workout plus a disciplined naming convention is the complete answer.

Frequently asked questions

What activity type should I use for a sauna on Strava?

Use Workout. Strava has no sauna activity type, and Workout is its generic non-GPS category. Put the duration and temperature in the activity name, for example "Sauna - 18:00 at 180F", because Strava has no field for either detail on a manual entry.

What activity type is a cold plunge on Strava?

Workout, for the same reason. Strava has no cold plunge, ice bath, or cold water immersion type, so the generic Workout category is the correct choice.

Does a Workout activity affect my Strava stats?

It adds to your total activity count and total time but contributes no distance, elevation, or pace. It will not affect your running or cycling averages and will not appear in distance-based leaderboards.

Does Strava plan to add a sauna activity type?

There is no announced plan for one. Strava's activity types are built around measurable movement, and sauna and cold plunge sessions have none, so Workout remains the practical answer.