Why is my upper body so freakin' weak?

[tremorviolet]

Hey Mark,
So I've been doing SS on and off for about six months. Doing it more consistently (mostly three days a week) starting in January. My squats are doing great, still progressing but I keep stalling out at a ridiculously low weight on my presses (and bench somewhat).

In August, when I started SS, my working sets were:

Power Cleans: 85
Squat: 135
Bench Press: 85
Deadlift: 150
Press: 60

My working sets now:

Power Cleans: 95
Squat: 175
Bench Press: 102.5
Deadlift: 185
Press: 65 (and there was a little hip drive cheat involved)

I've had to reset a couple of times due to a pesky back muscle tweak (which also slowed down my deadlift and really screwed up my clean, plus I rack my cleans slow as crap which I'm still working on) but it still seems like I should progress farther then five pounds in six months. My upper body looks beefier even though I haven't gained any weight.

Am I being too impatient? Should I reset the press again? Am I stalling out faster due to my age (41)? Or is it time for a new program even though I'm still making gains on the squat and deadlift? (or can you at least point me to the appropriate sections in SS and PP and add a snarky comment that'll make a good quote )

[Mark Rippetoe]

You're having trouble because you are a female, and females gain strength in their upper bodies more slowly than males. And your age isn't helping, but women of all ages respond more slowly to upper body training than men. I am sorry about this, but it is not my fault; others were in charge of this particular detail. Make damn sure you are taking sufficiently small jumps on your presses/benches, and keep chewing away at it.

[isis]

Have you tried gaining weight? I'm 42 and female, did SS for 4 months working from zero to around your starting numbers, and I found I made my best progress on the upper body lifts when I was eating with the full intention of gaining weight. When I didn't eat enough my upper body lifts would feel it first. Maybe it's because my quads and glutes have lots of nearby fat cells and my deltoids don't.

I can also vouch for what Mark says on here periodically about the ease of losing fat after SS--six weeks ago I switched to 1x5 on all the lifts at the weights I used to do 3x5, do that once a week plus some metcon. I went back to eating like I used to before SS, and I've lost eight pounds, the maybe two pounds of fat I gained on SS and a bunch more, and I'm keeping the muscle.