Put a 60 kg lifter and a 120 kg lifter on the same platform and the heavier athlete will almost always post a bigger total. That doesn't make them the better lifter — it makes them heavier. Powerlifting solved this problem decades ago with coefficient scoring: multiply a lifter's total by a number derived from their bodyweight, and suddenly athletes of any size can be ranked on a level field. For years the standard was the Wilks coefficient. Today most federations use DOTS. This guide explains what each one does, why the switch happened, and which you should quote.
The problem coefficients solve
Strength doesn't scale linearly with bodyweight. As people get heavier, they can lift more in absolute terms, but the rate of increase slows — a 20 kg jump in bodyweight adds far more to a light lifter's potential total than to a heavy lifter's. This is a consequence of basic scaling: muscle force tracks cross-sectional area, which grows more slowly than mass.
A fair scoring system has to bend the curve accordingly. It should reward the featherweight who totals three times bodyweight and the superheavyweight who moves enormous absolute loads, without letting sheer size dominate. Coefficient formulas do this by assigning each bodyweight a multiplier: smaller for the middleweights whose totals are already flattered by favourable scaling, larger for the very light and very heavy.
How the score is built
Both formulas share the same skeleton. Your coefficient is 500 divided by a polynomial in your bodyweight — a curve fitted to represent how much total a lifter of that bodyweight can be expected to post. Your score is simply your total multiplied by that coefficient.
The polynomials have separate sets of constants for men and women, because the strength-to-bodyweight relationship differs between the sexes. The practical upshot is that a higher score is better, and two lifters at very different bodyweights can compare scores directly.
Where Wilks and DOTS differ is in the shape of the curve. Wilks uses a fifth-order polynomial; DOTS uses a fourth-order one, refitted to a more modern dataset. Those different curves treat the extremes of bodyweight differently.
Why DOTS replaced Wilks
The Wilks coefficient, introduced in the 1990s, served the sport well for a long time. But as data accumulated, lifters and statisticians noticed it had biases at the edges. In particular, Wilks was seen to under-reward the lightest lifters and treat the heaviest lifters in ways that no longer matched the evidence. Because the formula was fitted to older data, the sport had partly outgrown it.
DOTS — introduced in 2020 — was a re-derivation on updated numbers, designed to smooth out those edge effects and better reflect the modern competitive population. Many federations, including the IPF for a period and numerous others, adopted DOTS as their default scoring method. The change wasn't a repudiation of Wilks so much as a routine update: same idea, better-fitted curve.
The visible effect is largest at the extremes. A very light or very heavy lifter may see a noticeably different score under the two systems, while a lifter near the middle of the bodyweight range will find the two scores relatively close. That's exactly what you'd expect from two curves that agree in the middle and diverge at the tails.
It's worth being clear that neither formula is "wrong." Both are honest attempts to model the same underlying relationship, fitted to different data with slightly different mathematical shapes. DOTS simply had the advantage of more evidence and a fresh derivation. A decade from now it's entirely possible another refit will refine the curve again — the history of coefficient scoring is one of periodic updates as datasets grow, not of a single perfect answer. Treat whichever formula you use as the current best approximation, not a law of nature.
Which one should you use?
The honest answer is: whichever your context calls for.
- For a competition, use the coefficient your federation scores with. If the meet ranks by DOTS, your Wilks number is irrelevant to placing, and vice versa. Check the rulebook rather than assume.
- For a modern, widely accepted benchmark, DOTS is the current standard and the safer default when you just want a number to track or share.
- For historical comparison, Wilks is still useful. Decades of results and old records are expressed in Wilks, so if you want to compare yourself to a lifter from years past, you need the same yardstick they used.
Because the tool shows both at once, you don't have to choose blindly — you can see how you score under each and quote whichever fits the conversation.
How to actually raise your score
Because your score is total multiplied by a bodyweight coefficient, there are only two levers: lift more, or optimise your bodyweight relative to the curve. The first is the honest one — add kilos to your squat, bench, and deadlift through years of training, and your score climbs. That's the path that reflects real strength and the one worth building a training plan around.
The second lever is subtler and easy to overthink. Because the coefficient changes with bodyweight, there's theoretically a bodyweight at which a given lifter scores best. In practice, chasing that optimum by manipulating your weight rarely pays off: cutting weight usually costs you total, and the coefficient gains seldom make up for the strength lost. The coefficient is designed to be roughly fair across bodyweights precisely so that you don't have to game it. For almost everyone, the productive focus is the total — get stronger, and let the coefficient do its job.
It's also worth knowing that scoring doesn't stop at Wilks and DOTS. Masters and junior lifters sometimes have age coefficients applied on top, and different federations occasionally use their own variants. If you're competing, the meet's chosen formula is the only one that counts toward placing, so always confirm which system a competition scores with before you fixate on a number from a different one.
What the score does and doesn't capture
Coefficient scores are a big improvement over raw totals, but they still measure only one thing: total load relative to bodyweight, on the assumption of a standard squat-bench-deadlift meet. They don't distinguish raw from equipped lifting, they don't care about technique or leverages, and they say nothing about how balanced your three lifts are. A lifter with a monstrous deadlift and a weak bench can post the same score as a perfectly balanced athlete.
That's why coefficient scores pair naturally with population strength bands. The bands tell you how each individual lift ranks; the coefficient tells you how your whole total ranks relative to bodyweight. Read together, they give a fuller picture than either alone.
The bottom line
Wilks and DOTS answer the same question — how strong is this total for this bodyweight? — with slightly different maths. DOTS is the modern default, fitted to current data and fairer at the extremes; Wilks remains the language of historical results. Neither is a measure of your worth as a lifter, only a way to compare totals across sizes. Quote the one your situation demands, watch your score trend upward over training years, and remember that the number is downstream of the training — not the other way around.