How to Hyper Train in Pokémon Sword and Shield

Hyper Training is one aspect of the Pokémon Sword and Shield post-game that you do not want to overlook. It can turn a normally mediocre Pokémon into one that’s nearly viable for competitive in just a few simple steps. 

Say you have a Pokémon that has the perfect nature, a good ability, and all of the moves you want it to know. But the Individual Values (IVs) are keeping it from being truly incredible—Hyper Training is how you fix that. It will let you max out the IVs of any Pokémon you want.

This special kind of training is only available after you beat the game and can make it to the very top of the map, where Rose Tower has been converted into the Battle Tower by Leon. Here, you will exchange Bottle Caps to max out stats. 

There are two types of Bottle Caps, regular and gold, which will get you different levels of training depending on which one you trade in. 

Related: How to get Gold Bottle Caps in Pokémon Sword and Shield

A regular old Bottle Cap will let you pick a single stat to max out on one of your Pokémon, while a Gold Bottle Cap simply lets you max out every stat all at once. You can earn or purchase these items in multiple ways, but the easiest option is just competing in the Battle Tower and either getting them as rewards or purchasing the regular Bottle Caps from the BP shop. 

Once you reach Rank Four in the Battle Tower, you will unlock the IV Judge, which give you the ability to check how good a Pokémon’s stats are. Just head to your storage box and press the Plus Button to see where your team’s stats sit. 

Once you know exactly what stats need to be trained and you have a decent collection of Bottle Caps sitting in your bag, just head over to the NPC behind the desk on the right and trade in the necessary items. Then you can select which stat you want to Hyper Train. 

Now, the best part about Hyper Training is that the IVs don’t actually increase to the max of 31. Instead, it will tell you the stat has been “Hyper Trained,” which means the game will treat it as a 31 IV max. 

This is the perfect way to keep the Hidden Power you want on a Pokémon, since the type of that move is based on a specific combination of IVs. 

Whatever Pokémon you want to train will need to be level 100 before you can even start Hyper Training it, so get to grinding and collecting as many Bottle Caps as possible.