Fitness
Fitness Training
“We’re here to add, not replace”: inside the World Fitness Project
WFP co-founder Will Moorad lays out the World Fitness Project’s vision: turning functional fitness into a full-season professional sport, complete with points, contracts, and real continuity.
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For much of its history, elite functional fitness has revolved around moments rather than seasons. Athletes would train all year to peak for a single weekend, chase a podium and then disappear back into their gyms to start the cycle again. The performances were impressive, but the structure was fleeting. There was little continuity, limited security and almost no sense of a wider narrative that fans could follow beyond the event floor.
The World Fitness Project (WFP) is changing that. By building a season-long professional league, the WFP is asking functional fitness to operate more like an established sport than a collection of standalone competitions. The announcement of a significantly increased prize purse only sharpened that message, signaling a shift away from the long-standing idea that elite fitness is an 'expensive hobby' and towards something that more closely resembles a career.
The 2025 season served as an early test of that idea, with a finale in Copenhagen delivering both spectacle and substance, highlighted by Laura Horváth's commanding performance under pressure. More importantly, it showed what the sport can look like when results accumulate, storylines develop and fans have a reason to stay invested from start to finish.
As the circuit prepares to return to Denmark for the first event of the 2026 season, expectations are higher, the margins are tighter and the long-term vision is clearer – something Will Moorad, co-founder and director of sport at the World Fitness Project, is acutely aware of.
What are your thoughts on the 2025 season. Did it unfold as you envisioned?
The 2025 season largely accomplished what we set out to do: prove that a professional, season-long functional fitness league is not only viable, but needed. We established consistent events and a competitive structure that athletes could plan around.
That said, any inaugural season reveals gaps. We learned quickly where we need to simplify, where we need to elevate and how to better support athletes, fans and partners. 2025 validated the vision and gave us a clear roadmap for improvement.
What is the WFP?
Laura Horváth became the WFP's first women's champ in Copenhagen
© Ádám Bertalan/Red Bull Content Pool
A common misconception is that WFP exists to replace something else. That has never been the mission. WFP exists to add opportunities, not take them away.
Making that jump requires getting the small things right. The WFP is moving away from the rough-and-ready feel that defined early functional fitness events and toward something more consistent and reliable for both fans and partners. That shift isn't about surface upgrades or bigger stages, but about how the competition actually runs: how athletes move through the weekend, how events connect and how clear the pathway is for competitors who're committing their bodies and careers to a new format.
Fine out more about the World Fitness Project
What do you plan to do differently in 2026?
2026 is about refining the product. We're focusing on continuing to build clarity, consistency and execution within our team and our community. That includes tightening qualification pathways, improving competitive flow at events and raising the standard of presentation.
What's something critics get wrong about WFP?
A common misconception is that WFP exists to replace something else. That has never been the mission. WFP exists to add opportunities, not take them away. We're building a professional layer that athletes can rely on. The intent has always been to create stability and longevity for the sport.
A professional, season-long functional fitness league is not only viable, but needed.
As Moorad explains, the heart of the WFP philosophy is the points system. In a sport that often rewards the 'best on the day', the WFP wants to find the best of the year. This requires a level of resilience that few other disciplines can match. By rewarding consistency across multiple events, the league ensures that its champions aren't just specialists who got lucky with a specific programming bias, but are truly the most versatile humans on the planet. This structural continuity is what allows for real rivalries to form and, crucially, for fans to stay engaged over months rather than just days.
Making athletes stars and building a fan following is big goal of the WFP
© Esben Zøllner Olesen/Red Bull Content Pool
Why does functional fitness need a professional league structure right now rather than just another one-off trophy hunt?
A league structure creates continuity, storylines, rankings, rivalries and accountability. It allows fans to follow a season, sponsors to invest with confidence and athletes to plan their year like professionals in any other sport.
How does the WFP points system reward consistency across a full season?
Our points system is designed to reward athletes who show up and perform well repeatedly. A single great weekend won't carry an entire season. Consistency, resilience and adaptability across multiple events are what define champions. The points system reflects that reality.
For too long, the narrative of the functional fitness athlete has been one of financial sacrifice. Even at the highest levels, many of the world's best have been forced to pay out of pocket for travel and recovery with the hope of a podium finish that might cover their costs. As Moorad says, the WFP is disrupting this by offering guaranteed professional contracts. At its simplest, this move is designed to elevate the standard of the game, because when an athlete knows their income is secure, they can afford to train smarter and recover harder. In theory, the competition floor would be better off for it.
A league structure creates continuity, storylines, rankings, rivalries and accountability.
How do guaranteed pro contracts change the stakes for athletes who've spent years paying out of pocket to compete?
Guaranteed contracts flip the equation. Instead of athletes absorbing all the risk, the league shares it. That validation matters. It allows athletes to train smarter, recover properly and treat competition as a profession, not an expensive hobby. It also sends a clear message that performance consistency and professionalism are valued and rewarded at WFP.
Athletes have trained year round for few events. WFP aims to change that
© Esben Zøllner Olesen/Red Bull Content Pool
Athlete contracts is a development WFP has introduced to provide stability
© Esben Zøllner Olesen/Red Bull Content Pool
What specific gap in the market made you realize this project had to happen?
The gap was continuity. Athletes were training year-round for isolated moments with no guarantees and very light stability. Fans had no consistent narrative to follow. WFP exists to solve that problem by providing structure, opportunity and a clear pathway. Once you see that gap, it becomes impossible to ignore.
The return to Copenhagen this year is just the beginning of a much larger journey. The WFP isn't just looking at the next season, but at the next decade. As the league expands its global footprint, the objective remains the same: legitimacy.
Where do you see the World Fitness Project in five years and what does global success look like?
In five years, WFP is a globally recognised professional league with clear divisions, international events and athletes who are household names within the sport. Global success isn't just about geography, it is about legitimacy. It's athletes earning real income, fans following a full season and partners viewing functional fitness as a stable investable sport.
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