I've been looking at strength standards lately. I haven't been testing my one rep max in any real sense, but I've been lifting for about five months, which puts me at the novice level, and I have been doing multiple reps of about 29% more than what an untrained person's one rep max is on squat and deadlift. And despite how much I complain about how my upper body strength is not improving as fast as I'd like, I'm actually doing multiple reps of the novice one-rep max on the shoulder press these days.

So, uh, I guess my upper body strength is better than I thought it was? I can see the most muscle definition in my arms, but I had figured that was because I'm pear shaped and my body fat is mostly hanging around my lower half and covering whatever muscle gains I've made down there, and not because I've added muscle up above.