Explainer

What is DOTS?

A bodyweight-adjusted strength score that lets you compare lifters across weight classes — pound-for-pound, not just who lifted the most.

A raw total tells you who moved the most weight. It doesn't tell you who was strongest for their size — a 600 kg total at 60 kg bodyweight is a very different feat from 600 kg at 140 kg. DOTS is the number that levels that out.

How it works

DOTS takes a lifter's total and divides by a factor based on their bodyweight and sex, then scales it. The result is a single comparable score: the higher the DOTS, the stronger the lifter relative to their bodyweight. It's the default ranking score on OpenPowerlifting, introduced in 2019 by Tim Konertz as a simpler successor to the older Wilks formula.

The formula's curve was calibrated against drug-tested raw lifters — but that describes the reference data it was fit to, not a restriction. DOTS is just arithmetic, so it can be (and is) computed for any lifter; OpenPowerlifting publishes a DOTS value for every entry in its database, equipped and raw alike.

What it does — and doesn't — adjust for

This is the important part. DOTS adjusts for bodyweight and sex — and nothing else. It does NOT adjust for equipment, drug-testing status, or age. Supportive gear inflates a total (and so its DOTS), and the score knows nothing about testing or age.

So DOTS is a fair comparison only between lifters in the same equipment category and testing pool — which is exactly why federations award "Best Lifter" within a division (best raw by DOTS, best equipped by DOTS), not across them. Read a DOTS number as relative strength within a like-for-like setting, not an absolute ranking across every variable.

At a glance

See where a lift ranks — the rank calculator

Sources