Wall balls are simple enough. Squat, thrust and throw a medicine ball in the air, hitting a 3m-high target. Catch and repeat for a fixed amount of reps – in Hyrox, it’s 100. Simple? Yes. Easy? Not exactly.

The challenge with wall balls is that they are deceptively hard. The difficulty isn’t so much the weight. It’s the reps. For the first couple dozen, even a 9kg ball feels light. But as the lactic acid builds and your heart rate spikes, fatigue soon forces you to break, reset and go again.

The first time I did 100 reps was at the end of a Hyrox. I approached it unprepared, without a plan, and it took me a disappointing 11 minutes and three seconds – just shy of double the average time in the men’s open category.

A year later, I decided it was time I did something about it and committed to doing 100 wall balls, every day, for 28 days.

The first few days were about trial and error. I reckon one in 10 throws was off target and I struggled initially to get into a rhythm. But once I’d drawn a chalk target 3m up the side of my garden wall and acclimatised to throwing and catching the 9kg ball, I could soon manage 100 good-quality reps in under eight minutes.

My next goal was to do 100 good-quality reps quickly. Over the next 10 days, I experimented with different protocols. From a six-minute EMOM to a 1-10-1 ladder to 100 for time with 15 burpees between sets, some were designed to make it more challenging, while others helped me to figure out how to split the 100 reps into manageable sets.

By week three, the results were beginning to show. I had managed to whittle my PB time down from eight minutes six seconds on day one to five minutes 12 seconds by day 21. At a push, I could manage 50 reps at 9kg unbroken and had a clear strategy for completing the full 100, whatever events unfurled.

Heading into week four, fully confident with the 9kg ball, I began to test my speed at 6kg; 100 reps with the lighter ball felt far easier. I required fewer sets and my PB time dropped to three minutes 46 seconds, doing an unbroken 100.

They say repetition is the key to success. In this case, it’s so true. Before, doing 100 wall balls a day was challenging. It’s still difficult, but it’s no longer insurmountable.

When I started, I simply hoped to set a ‘quick’ time with a 9kg ball and ideally go unbroken with 6kg. I completed both goals – but I also achieved a lot more on top of that.

My gym shorts now feel tighter around my quads and glutes. My neck and upper back feel stronger and, to me, look bigger. I also found that my hip and ankle mobility had improved from squatting each day.

Doing the bulk of the challenge with a 9kg ball means that I can now fly through 100 reps at 6kg with no issue whatsoever. My PB is sub-four minutes and I’ve worked out my personal fastest possible 100-rep time, working off the basis that I can manage roughly 28 reps per minute at top speed.

Bar some DOMS in my hands and neck, I had no issues with pain or fatigue. It might not be the smartest way to improve your wall-ball time; a mixture of heavy overhead presses and threshold training is probably more efficient. But it’s a risk averse, high-reward challenge – particularly as it takes less than 10 minutes a day.

In the end, committing to doing something difficult, sticking to it and it then becoming attainable, has been the most rewarding part of this challenge.

Bulldog Competition Wall Ball (3-15KG)

Technogym Medicine Ball (4-11KG)

Some tips from our fitness director, Andrew Tracey.

1/

Hold the ball high on your chest, close to your body, under your chin. Keep your hands under the ball and don’t squeeze to hold it.

2/

Take a wide stance and squat down until the crease of your hips passes below your knees, keeping your torso upright.

3/

Explosively stand up and, in one motion, launch the ball at the target. Let your legs do the work, not your shoulders.

4/

Once the ball leaves your hands, let your arms drop. Don’t hold your hands up waiting for the ball or your shoulders will fatigue.

5/

Receive the ball in the start position and let the weight pull you down into the next squat; try not to catch, pause and then squat.

6/

Take a deep inhale on the way down, and exhale fast on each throw, keeping the movement cyclical to avoid wasting energy.

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

Luke Chamberlain is the ecommerce editor for Men’s Health UK where he compiles expert-led buying guides and in-depth product reviews across gym wear, fitness tech, supplements, and grooming. Responsible for testing everything from the latest gym headphones to the best beard trimmers, Luke also enlists the help of leading health and wellness experts to help readers make informed choices when shopping online. He also covers major sales events for Men’s Health, including Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day, scouting and verifying hundreds of discounts in order to recommend only the most genuine deals on offer. A magazine journalism graduate from the University of Sheffield in 2018, Luke has also worked as assistant editor for Outdoor Swimmer magazine and as an ecommerce writer for The Recommended. When he’s not testing the latest health and fitness products, he’s busy plotting routes for his next trail run or gravel ride out of London. Follow Luke on Instagram at @lukeochamb