What is a good Wilks score?
As a rough guide, a Wilks around 300 marks a solid beginner-to-intermediate lifter, around 400 is advanced, around 500 is elite or national-level, and 500+ is international class. These are widely-referenced community benchmarks, not an official classification — here is the table and what it does and does not mean.
Open the Wilks calculatorNot sure where you land? The Wilks Calculator turns your bodyweight and total into a Wilks score in seconds, so you can place yourself against the bands below.
The benchmark table
These are the bands most commonly quoted in gyms and online lifting communities. Read them as a general orientation, not a rulebook — they are discussed in more detail after the table.
| Wilks score | Commonly-used label | Rough meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ~300 | Solid beginner / intermediate | A trained amateur with a year or two of consistent lifting |
| ~400 | Advanced | Competitive regional / club-level lifter |
| ~500 | Elite / national-level | National championship contender |
| 500+ | International | International-class, world-championship pace |
No federation issues Wilks "grades". These bands are widely-referenced gym and community benchmarks that vary by federation, era and testing status, and they are not an official classification. A Wilks score also only compares meaningfully against another score computed with the same coefficient set and version.
Why the numbers are comparison figures, not absolutes
A Wilks score is a population-fitted comparison number. It was built by fitting a curve to the totals of many lifters so that size can be factored out, which is exactly what lets a 60 kg and a 120 kg lifter be ranked on the same scale. But because it is a fit, its behaviour is best near the middle of the data and weakest at the extremes: at very light and very heavy bodyweights the coefficient can flatter or penalise a lifter more than the curve intends. That is one of the reasons the IPF moved away from Wilks. So a "good" score for a 60 kg lifter and a 140 kg lifter are not perfectly equivalent, even at the same Wilks.
How the score is produced
The bands above sit on top of the same two-step calculation used everywhere: a coefficient from a fifth-degree polynomial of bodyweight, then that coefficient times your total in kilograms. For the full formula, the male constants and a worked example, see how is a Wilks score calculated. As a reference point from that article, an 83 kg male with a 600 kg total scores about 398.8 — which places him right at the "advanced" band.
Reading the bands sensibly
Treat a jump of 50 Wilks as a meaningful step in training terms, and treat the boundary numbers as soft. Someone at 395 and someone at 405 are, in practice, the same lifter on different days. The value of the score is in tracking your own progress over time and in giving a rough sense of where you sit — not in defending a single threshold. Federation, weight class norms, and whether an event is drug-tested all shift what "national-level" actually requires.
What a good Wilks score does not tell you
A high Wilks says nothing about whether the lifts behind it were judged legal: squat depth, a paused bench, locked-out deadlift, and compliance with a federation's technical rules are all invisible to the formula. It is a comparison number computed from whatever total you enter, sensitive at bodyweight extremes, and dependent on the coefficient set used. Use it to orient yourself, not to certify a performance.
Frequently asked questions
Is a 400 Wilks good?
By the common community benchmarks, around 400 is an advanced, competitive club-level score. It is a widely-referenced guide, not an official grade, and it varies by federation and testing status.
Do men and women use the same benchmarks?
The Wilks formula uses different coefficients per sex, so the score is already sex-adjusted, and the same bands are generally quoted for both. They remain rough community references, not official.
Can I compare my Wilks to a friend's DOTS?
No. A score only compares against another score from the same system and version. Wilks, Wilks-2, DOTS and IPF GL are separate scales and are not interchangeable.
Related tools and reading
Wilks Calculator
Compute your Wilks score and see which benchmark band it falls into.
ReadWilks vs DOTS vs IPF GL points
How the three published scoring systems differ, and why scores are not interchangeable.
Sources
- Robert Wilks (Powerlifting Australia), the Wilks formula and published coefficients. Benchmark bands reflect widely-referenced community usage, not an official classification. Checked 23 Aug 2026.
- International Powerlifting Federation, replacement of Wilks with IPF GL points in 2019, citing bias at bodyweight extremes. Checked 23 Aug 2026.