Free template
Cold exposure log template
A spreadsheet for cold plunges, ice baths, cold showers and contrast sessions — the eleven columns that turn a pile of sessions into something you can actually read six months later. Download the CSV or print the sheet. No email, no account, no catch.
CSV, 11 columns, opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. Three example rows at the top — delete them before you start.
| Date | Modality | Temp | Cold min | Rounds | Warm min | Warm type | 1–10 | Felt after | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Printing hides the site chrome and prints this grid alone. Landscape fits it best.
What each column is for
Every column here earns its place by answering a question you will actually ask later. If a column never gets filled in, delete it — a log you keep beats a log that is complete.
- date
- The day of the session, as YYYY-MM-DD. Sortable in every spreadsheet, and unambiguous between the US and everywhere else.
- modality
- Cold shower, ice bath, cold plunge, open water, sauna + plunge. Three minutes in a lake and three in a shower are not the same session, and averaging them hides both.
- water_temp / temp_unit
- The water temperature, and C or F so nobody has to guess later. The single most-skipped field and the one that makes two sessions comparable at all. Leave it blank rather than guess.
- cold_minutes
- Total time in the cold, across all rounds. The closest thing to a dose. Weekly totals are how most protocols are written.
- rounds
- How many cold phases. 1 for a straight plunge. Six minutes in one go and six across three rounds are different sessions.
- warm_minutes / warm_type
- The warm side of a contrast session, and what it was — sauna, hot bath, hot shower, plain rest. Without it a contrast session looks identical to a plain plunge in your own records.
- difficulty_1_10
- How hard it felt, at the time. Subjective and still the most useful column here: the same protocol getting easier over months is the clearest sign of adaptation you can record yourself.
- felt_after
- A word or two, a few hours later. Kept short deliberately. A field that takes effort to fill is a field that stops getting filled.
- notes
- Anything else — sleep, soreness, what you trained that day, conditions. Where the actual pattern usually turns up, months later.
A spreadsheet works. Until it doesn't.
TrackCold exists because its founder kept this exact spreadsheet for years, so this page is not a trick to make you want an app. For a lot of people a CSV is genuinely enough, and it has one real advantage nothing else does: it is yours, in a format that will still open in thirty years.
What it can't do is the middle of the session. You cannot run a timer in a spreadsheet. You cannot fill a cell with wet hands, in a tub, with your eyes shut. It will not tap your wrist when a contrast round ends, and it will not keep counting while your phone is indoors on a shelf. In practice the logging happens afterwards, from memory, or it quietly stops happening — which is how most cold-exposure spreadsheets end.
The honest split: a spreadsheet works before and after the plunge; an app works during it. TrackCold times the rounds, records the session on the spot, and keeps the history in your own iCloud. If you'd rather stay in a spreadsheet, Asgard exports CSV with these same fields, so you can do both.
If you want the free timer instead of the paper, the contrast therapy timer runs in your browser and stores nothing either.
Questions
Is the cold plunge log template free?
Yes. It's a plain CSV file — download it, open it in Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets or anything else, and it's yours. No email, no account, no sign-up.
What should I record after a cold plunge?
At minimum: the date, how long you were in, and the water temperature. Those three make sessions comparable to each other. Rounds and the warm phase matter if you do contrast. A one-to-ten difficulty rating is the most useful subjective field, because the same protocol getting easier over months is the clearest evidence of adaptation you can collect yourself.
Can I use this in Google Sheets or Excel?
Yes. It's a standard comma-separated file with a header row, so both open it directly. In Google Sheets use File then Import; in Excel, open it and keep the text format for the date column if it offers to reformat.
Why would I use an app instead of a spreadsheet?
For most of a session a spreadsheet is fine — it's the middle that breaks. You cannot run a timer in a spreadsheet, you cannot start one with wet hands from inside a tub, and it will not tap your wrist when a round ends. A spreadsheet works before and after the plunge. An app works during it.
Or skip the typing.
TrackCold records the session as it happens — duration, rounds, temperature, notes — and keeps it in your own iCloud. Free to download, no account.
More on TrackCold: Cold plunge timer · Ice bath timer · Cold plunge tracker · Apple Watch app