Wall balls are the last station, and they fail suddenly rather than gradually. You go from fine to unable in about three reps. Every session below is built around that fact, which is why almost all of them are done tired.
Ball weights are 4kg Women's Open, 6kg Men's Open and Women's Pro, 9kg Men's Pro. Targets are 2.70m for women and 3.00m for men. Train to those, not to whatever your gym has.
Why trust this
Rep counts, weights and target heights are read from the official 26/27 singles rulebook. Note that it is 100 reps in every division, including Women's Open, which changed from 75 in the 25/26 season.
1. The benchmark
Do this monthly and nothing else on the day.
- Warm-up: 10 minutes easy, then 2 x 10 reps at race weight.
- Work: 100 reps for time, at race weight to race target height, broken however you like.
- Record: total time, and where your first break came.
- Do it at the end of a session, not fresh.
That number is your progress marker. Fresh 100s flatter you and tell you nothing.
2. Set discipline under fatigue
Teaching yourself to break before you need to.
- Work: 5 rounds of: 20 wall balls, then 200m run, 60 seconds rest.
- Rule: break every set of 20 into 10 and 10, even in round one when it feels unnecessary.
- Why: the habit has to exist before you are tired, because you will not invent it at rep 70.
3. Squat endurance, unloaded
The underlying quality, on a non-wall-ball day.
- Work: 4 sets of 20 air squats to wall ball depth, 4 sets of 12 goblet squats, 3 x 45-second wall sits.
- Focus: identical depth on every rep. You are building tolerance for the position, not strength.
Depth disappearing around rep sixty is the most-called fault at this station, and it is a fatigue problem rather than a technique problem.
4. Shoulder and catch tolerance
- Work: 5 rounds of: 15 wall balls, 10 push presses at a light load, 60 seconds rest.
- Focus: catching the ball into the squat rather than absorbing it with straight arms overhead.
- Note: if your throws start drifting off the target, stop the set. Drifting is a legs signal, not an aim signal.
5. The back half
The most honest rehearsal on this page, and the hardest.
- Work: 1km run, 100m walking lunges at race weight, 1km run, then 100 wall balls for time.
- Frequency: once every two or three weeks. It takes real recovery.
- What it teaches: what your set sizes actually need to be when your quads are gone, which is the only question that matters on race day.
Compare this 100-rep time with session one's. The gap is the fatigue cost, and closing it is the whole game.
Putting it into a week
| Day | Session | |---|---| | Mon | Squat endurance (3) | | Tue | Threshold run | | Wed | Rest or easy | | Thu | Set discipline (2), or the back half (5) every third week | | Fri | Strength, finishing with the benchmark (1) monthly | | Sat | Long easy run | | Sun | Rest |
Honest limitations
Height is a genuine structural advantage here and nobody can train it away. A taller athlete throws a shorter distance to the same target. Compare yourself to your own previous times rather than to the field.
Ball condition varies between venues, and a ball that has gone soft handles differently.
If you have a shoulder or knee history, 100 reps of a loaded squat-to-throw is worth a professional opinion before you build volume.
And the usual proportion: if your wall balls collapse, the cause is usually the seven stations before them. Pacing the sled push may improve your wall ball time more than any session on this page.
Next step
For the faults these sessions correct, see wall ball mistakes.
For the full weight and target table, see station weights explained.
The fitness assessment quiz will tell you where your time is really going.
Source: rep counts, ball weights and target heights from the official HYROX singles rulebook, season 26/27.
[ FAQ ]
Frequently asked
How do you train for HYROX wall balls?
At race weight, to race target height, at the end of sessions rather than fresh. The station arrives last, so training it rested improves the wrong thing.
How many wall balls should you do in training?
Enough to go past where your form breaks, which for most people is somewhere past rep sixty. Sets of twenty do not rehearse the part of the station that decides your time.
What is a good HYROX wall ball time?
It varies enormously by height, division and how the previous seven stations went. A more useful benchmark is your own 100-rep time recorded monthly at the end of a session.
Written by
The Suth Performance teamCoaches and editors
The Suth Performance programming team, led by HYROX Elite 15 athlete Ben Sutherland.
[ KEEP READING ]
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