A study on the mechanical property enhancement and industrial production challenges faced by hydrogels in practical applications is carried out in this study. Due to the limitations of traditional isotropic hydrogel toughening methods and the shortcomings of common fiber reinforcing material systems, a new method of hydrogel fiber preparation is proposed. A commercial water-soluble polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) yarn was impregnated with a glycerol-containing aqueous solution and then subjected to a freeze-thaw cycle to produce PVA hydrogel fibers, and its tensile properties were tested. The fibers were then composited with a PVA hydrogel matrix to prepare self-reinforced anisotropic hydrogels, and the effects of the fiber volume fraction, matrix PVA content and other factors on their mechanical properties were investigated in depth. The results showed that the fiber properties of PVA hydrogel could be significantly improved by optimising the glycerol content, such as tensile strength of 54.7 MPa at 80 wt% glycerol mass fraction, and the tensile strength of self-reinforced anisotropic hydrogel was maximum at 6.2 MPa at 16% fiber volume fraction, and the mechanical properties could be improved by increasing the PVA content of the matrix. At the same time, the superelastic intrinsic model using this kind of hydrogel was