During my sophomore year of college, I really started to get into strength training. You know... diving deep into Oxygen magazine and Muscle & Fitness, copying each model's exact diet, writing it out in a notebook and seeing how closely I could follow it.

Insert Face Palm emoji.

But let's be honest - most of us started in a spot like this before traversing deeper into the depths of powerlifting and sport science. In the late 90's, the field of exercise and sport science was still a baby. Sure, colleges had strength coaches, and the biggest schools had decent ones. But small schools hired what they could afford and most high schools probably didn't have a strength coach at all.

Fast forward to now and many high schools do have strength coaches! It's a wonderful sight to see!

So backtrack to my sophomore year of college when I noticed that my left side abdominals were more underdeveloped that my right side. So I asked one of the weight room attendants (who was also an assistant football coach) why that might be and how to fix it.

He told me: Do more crunches on that side.

Now, in all fairness, he was a football coach, but he was also the coach who supervised his team in the weight room, the guy helping them with exercises, form and weight selection. And yes, this was in 1999 when, as I mentioned earlier, most small schools didn't have much of a strength coach.

I have absolutely loved seeing the industry grow over the last 20+ years. It's now more common place for colleges of all sizes to have strength coaches and decent weight rooms. And even high schools as well. And while it's been a minute since I've been in that setting, I'd venture to say that those strength coaches are better educated and qualified to be coaching at their respective levels.

I was talking to my husband the other day and talking about a prominant, private high school in another state. They were looking for a strength coach and (while I'm not positive on the details) it seemed as though the salary wasn't drawing the most experienced coaches. They ended up hiring someone with less experience and qualifications.

Now for those of you that have been around awhile, you're pretty familiar with the fact that most universities 20+ years ago salaried their S&C coaches around $32-40,000/year to start with. (Big D1 and major conferences were typically more, with those football programs topping it out.) That was for a coach to work with 3-6 campus teams (sometimes more) and usually landed them about 50-70 hours per week. Colleagues and I would joke that "we didn't get into this industry for the money."

But it's hard to set a standard or demand a higher salary when a ceiling is set. There was typically no negotiating on starting salary. A big school might offer you close to $40k, but smaller schools were at mid $30's. And I know that because even after years of experience and certifications, I was still only offered mid $30s on job interviews (with $37 being the highest at a Big Ten school). And again, this was for the Olympic sports, NOT football.

I'm curious where the standard is now. Are those still typical salaries for starting strength coaches? Or has the industry moved a bit now that it's a little older?

Would love to hear from current college and high school coaches! Comment below!