Wes and Riley, and how the Kabuki Kratos came to be.

Be blinded by your own ambitions was a mantra that Kratos inventor Wes Beecroft instilled into his son Riley. As a seventh grader, Riley set a goal for himself: to break the middle school state record in the 100M dash. This was a tall order given that, at the time, Riley was a tall skinny kid that just began his career in sprinting that year. While Riley was driven, focused, and determined to set that state record, Wes was a former high school football player who loved lifting weights and designing innovative products… and knew nothing about sprinting.

Wes was blinded by his ambition to spend as much quality time with his son before Riley went to college. Wes poured himself into learning the craft of strength training and sprinting to act as his coach. The duo consumed as much information as they could access from YouTube videos to books to specialized training videos. The information was put into action while training at the local park.

Riley did set the Oregon middle school state record as an eighth grader… for a couple hours. That did not stop Riley from being proud of his accomplishment. After achieving his first goal, Riley set his sights on a new goal: to run the fastest time in his high school’s history which was a 10.74. Riley and Wes continued their training by doing “what worked”.

After training for nearly a year, it was time for Riley’s first race of his high school career. Shortly out of his drive phase, Riley pulled his hamstring. Riley was devastated, as was Wes. Wes felt like he let his son down. Wes replayed the video of Riley pulling his hamstring twice the day of the race. As he did, guilt and frustration engulfed him. Wes deleted the video, but the image of Riley’s face remained clear as if it had just happened yesterday.

Wes’ guilt, anger, and remorse soon turned into an unstoppable drive to keep his son injury-free and on the path to reaching his goals. The drive brought up urgent questions like, “how do the best in the world train”, “what do they eat”, “how do they think”. Wes did not know the answers to any of these questions. Wes realized he needed help. If Riley was going to pour his heart and soul into sprinting, Wes was going to pour his heart and soul into helping him achieve his goals.

The two absorbed every detail they could about sprinting and strength training. They traveled all over the United States and Canada in search of answers from the best in the industry. In their travels, one thing became apparent: elite athletes had access to equipment that Wes could not afford. Wes was a middle-class Mechanical Engineer with a background in machining making a respectable salary. He did not have the income to provide Riley with a $6,000 flywheel trainer, a $12,000 treadmill, and a $20,000 overspeed device.

Born out of a vision to provide elite training to everyone, Wes partnered with his longtime friend and fellow engineer Jeff to build a revolutionary training device to help Riley reach his goals. During the development, it became clear that Wes and Jeff needed the expertise and credibility of an industry-leading company. Wes and Jeff sought out a company whose vision aligned with theirs to provide expertise in training and the fitness industry.

Wes connected with Chris, co-founder of Kabuki Strength, through LinkedIn a year prior to the launch of Kratos. They quickly discovered common threads as engine+ers in the Portland area who both came from humble childhoods. When Wes and Jeff demoed the Kratos prototype, Chris loved the concept and could not help but provide input from both the training and engineering perspective. A partnership soon developed as the two organizations realized the strong alignment in organizational visions. As a result, the Kabuki Kratos was born.

What started as a means for Wes to spend time with his son turned into a focus on making world class training available for all; a vision that aligns directly with Kabuki Strength's own.

Wes and Jeff are proud to partner and work with the dedicated team at Kabuki Strength to bring this vision to you.