Brad Jonker

I grew up playing multiple sports as a kid and ended up at MidAmerica Nazarene University playing football. The strength program at MidAmerica was heavily influenced by the Olympic lifts and I quickly fell in love with this new style of training. By my senior year, my focus shifted away from football and toward weightlifting and competing. Graduation day came in May of 2010 and I graduated with a degree in elementary education. Fast forward seven years after teaching elementary school, physical education, high school strength and conditioning, and coaching high school football and wrestling, all the while also coaching a few small weightlifting teams on the side, I left public education and Lion Chaser Barbell was born in the spring of 2017 in my basement in Gardner. Ultimately God called me out of education. I wanted to do something big and I believe God wants to do something big through this gym.