Fitness
Fitness
For Laura Horváth, every victory is a family business
For Hungarian athlete Laura Horváth, dominating in functional fitness comes down to an unbreakable bond with those supporting her behind the scenes.
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Functional fitness can be a lonely sport. When the clock starts, the stadium shrinks until it's just you, a heavy barbell and the taste of copper building up in the back of your throat. Under the lights, as sweat pools on the rubber floor and the noise of the crowd shrinks to a distant hum, it can look like the ultimate solo test of will. Here, athletes lift alone, suffer alone and – if they’re lucky – win alone.
Watch Hungarian functional fitness athlete Laura Horváth for more than a minute, however and that illusion of isolation will melt away. The winner of the 2025 World Fitness Project (WFP) and Rogue Invitational credits her success under the lights not just to her relentless work ethic, but to a family that moves, thinks and operates as a single unit.
Horváth's story is told in a new documentary, Power in Every Rep: Together We Rise. Watch the trailer here:
1 min
Power in Every Rep: Together We Rise
From family roots to global champion: the story behind Laura Horváth’s rise in elite functional fitness.
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Family influences: growing up in a sporting family
This intrinsic and biological bond was first made in Budapest, where Horváth – the youngest of three children born to two PE teachers – began her career in high-performance fitness. "Our upbringing was really rooted in sports," she said to the Red Bulletin. "My Dad did the decathlon and my Mum did track.” On weekends, she explains, “we went biking and canoeing. It was part of our whole existence and it bonded me and my two brothers." Her parents also owned a local climbing wall and from her earliest memories, Horváth was in it – hanging off ropes, clambering up walls and watching members flow through complicated climbing routes.
The winner of the 2025 World Fitness Project in action
© Esben Zøllner Olesen / Red Bull Content Pool
The most important figure in that formation, though, was her older brother Kristóf. Where he went, she followed – whether he liked it or not. "Ever since I was little, I wanted to do what he did," she says. "He was my big brother and I was his little shadow, which annoyed him at times." That shadow, it would turn out, had serious competitive instincts of her own.
As the two grew older, the sibling dynamic shifted and, today, the Horváth duo are rarely apart – least of all on competition day, where they strategise, warm up and rev each other up ahead of every heat. "Laura's given me a purpose in life," Kristóf says in a new documentary about his sister's ascension in the sport. "I'm the kind of person who shows up for others more than for myself." It's a dynamic that has defined them since childhood and one Laura has leaned into rather than shied away from. The shadow has become a partnership.
Fitness made us closer as siblings
That bond is crystal clear in the heat of competition. When Horváth placed ninth overall in Indianapolis at the 2025 World Fitness Project, it was Kristóf who got her back on her feet fastest. "We have this rule not to get the highs too high and not stay in the lows too long either," he says. It's a philosophy Laura has absorbed completely – and one that, you suspect, was shaped long before either of them visualised an eventual first-place finish in Copenhagen. "We had the same goals," she says of growing up alongside her brother. "Fitness made us closer as siblings." Twenty-something years on, nothing much has changed.
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Pooling resources: opening a gym in Budapest with her brother
Showing her skill at the World Fitness Project Finals
© Esben Zøllner Olesen / Red Bull Content Pool
It’s perhaps why, when the pair finally decided to do something with all of it – the shared obsession, the years of accumulated knowledge, the desire to give something back – they did it together. Back home in Budapest, the creation of functional fitness gym Kaduzs had been a decade in the making. "We always dreamed of having our own community space," says Horváth. "But life kept getting in the way." When they almost gave up, they stumbled upon an empty warehouse. "That was it," she says. "We just decided to do it."
The space reflects the way Kristóf and Laura think about fitness – which is to say, differently from most. "He programs more for longevity and well-being, rather than just performance," says Horváth. "Not everyone needs to do muscle-ups or handstand walks. For most people, it's better to focus on strict pull-ups, push-ups, squats [and] deadlifts – movements that make everyday life easier." For a two-time world championship silver medallist and reigning world champion, it's a remarkably unflashy vision. Though Kaduzs itself was never built to impress. "We didn't set out to stand out," she says. "We just wanted a space we enjoyed being in."
We have this rule not to get the highs too high and not stay in the lows too long
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A place for women in sport
That ethos extends to who the space is for. As a young woman, Horváth was the first female to join her local weightlifting gym. Her brother had told her there were no female changing rooms, so she couldn't come. She came anyway. "I was persistent," she says, with some understatement and in Kaduzs today, she estimates 70 to 80 percent of members are women. "The message has changed a lot," she says. "Before, it was all about being skinny and small. Now, more women want to be strong, to fuel their bodies, to embrace strength.”
Though the barbell is a solo activity, the rest is a shared pursuit
© Esben Zøllner Olesen / Red Bull Content Pool
Women want to be strong, to fuel their bodies, to embrace strength
The gym she and Kristóf built from an empty warehouse in Budapest is, at its core, an extension of everything their family gave them: a place to move, to push and to belong. "Even I feel that when I walk into a new gym," she admits. "It's normal. Just take the first step. At Kaduzs we're very welcoming and after a couple of sessions, you'll feel at home." For Horváth, the barbell may be a solo pursuit. But everything around it – the family, the gym, the community they're quietly building in Budapest – is anything but. "All you need to do is show up," she says. "We'll meet you where you are."
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