Wilks vs DOTS: Which Score to Use

Wilks and DOTS answer the same question — who is strongest for their size — with two different polynomials, written 25 years apart. The scores are never equal, and for most lifters the ranking they produce is nearly identical. Enter your numbers and watch both move together:

The shape of each curve

Comparing raw scores is meaningless, because the formulas divide by different constants. What can be compared is shape: give every lifter the same 500 kg total and index each formula to the 80 kg result.

Bodyweight	Wilks (original)	Wilks 2020	DOTS	IPF GL
45 kg	168.9	153.4	160.9	135.7
50 kg	149.9	140.5	144.3	128.2
60 kg	124.9	121.7	122.4	116.3
70 kg	109.8	108.9	108.9	107.2
80 kg	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
100 kg	89.1	89.0	89.3	89.6
120 kg	84.2	83.2	83.3	82.4
140 kg	81.9	79.9	79.5	77.3
160 kg	80.3	77.7	76.7	73.5

Read the middle of that table first: from 70 to 120 kg, where the large majority of competitors live, the four formulas stay close but not identical. The widest gap in that stretch is 2.6 points, at 70 kg — 107.2 for IPF GL against 109.8 for the original Wilks — and it narrows to under a point between 80 and 100 kg. If you weigh somewhere in there, the choice of formula will almost never change your placing, and arguing about it is a hobby rather than a grievance.

Now read the ends. At 45 kg the spread runs from 135.7 to 168.9 — a 24% difference in how much credit a very light lifter gets for the same total. At 160 kg it runs from 73.5 to 80.3 in the other direction. That is where formula choice decides medals.

The interesting part: DOTS tracks the old Wilks, not the new one

The usual story is that DOTS was built to fix the original Wilks at the extremes. The output tells a subtler version. Across 45 to 160 kg, DOTS and the original Wilks stay within about 4% of each other in shape, with DOTS marginally more generous in the middle and marginally harsher at both ends. The formula that genuinely re-shaped the curve is Wilks 2020, which compresses the light end noticeably harder than either.

DOTS also has a hard structural quirk the polynomials do not advertise: the bodyweight input is clamped to 40–210 kg for men and 40–150 kg for women. Past those bounds the coefficient stops changing, so two superheavyweights of very different sizes get the same treatment.

Who uses what, and where that leaves Wilks

• USA Powerlifting scores DOTS. Its 2026 rulebook uses DOTS for ranking and tiebreaks and notes that development of a successor was approved in 2024, with DOTS remaining in force until one is adopted.
• The IPF — and therefore Powerlifting America, its US member federation — has used GL Points since May 2020. See the IPF GL Points calculator for that scale.
• Wilks is the score with no federation behind it and the widest circulation. Both versions of it are covered on the Wilks calculator page.

Which one should you actually track?

Whichever one your meet will print, and only one of them. The single mistake that produces wrong conclusions is mixing versions across a training year: a 273 from the old Wilks and a 328 from Wilks 2020 describe the same lifter on the same day, so a “gain” of 55 points can be nothing but a change of calculator. Pick the formula, record which one it is, and compare only against itself.

For the crude version of the same idea, the relative strength calculator divides total by bodyweight with no polynomial at all — and its failure mode is exactly what these formulas exist to correct.

This content is informational and does not replace coaching or the rules of your federation.