IPF GL points
The IPF's own answer
Every relative-strength formula is trying to do the same thing: turn a total and a bodyweight into one number that compares lifters across weight classes. The International Powerlifting Federation spent 2019 and 2020 evaluating the candidates — Wilks, Wilks2, DOTS, its own IPF Points — and then published its own. IPF GL points, where GL stands for GOODLIFT, have been the IPF's official score since 2020.
If you compete in the IPF or one of its national affiliates, this is the number that decides Best Lifter. Nothing else counts.
Your score is a percentage
This is the part most calculators never mention, and it is the most useful thing about the formula. The IPF picked the normalisation factor of 100 so that the points read directly as a percentage of the elite reference performance for your bodyweight, sex and category — what its documentation calls the golden standard.
So a score of 100 means you totalled exactly what an average elite lifter your size totals. A score of 72 means you are at 72% of that standard. A score of 118 means you are 18% beyond it — which is roughly where world records live.
Eight formulas wearing one name
The denominator is an exponential curve that rises with bodyweight and flattens towards an asymptote, reflecting the physical ceiling on what a body of any size can move:
IPF GL points = result × 100 / (A − B · e^(−C · bodyweight))
A, B and C are not universal constants. The IPF publishes eight sets of them, one for every combination of sex (men, women), equipment (classic, equipped) and event (full powerlifting, bench press only). Score an equipped total against the classic curve and you will get a number that looks plausible and is simply wrong — which is why this calculator makes you choose.
Unlike the polynomial formulas, this one has no upper bodyweight limit to worry about: the exponential is monotone all the way up. It does have a floor. The IPF specifies bodyweights of at least 40 kg for men and 35 kg for women, and below that the denominator can go negative for some categories.
Coefficients here are taken from the IPF's published document The IPF GL Coefficients (2020), Table 1, and cross-checked against the OpenPowerlifting project's independent implementation. Both of the worked examples in that document reproduce to all six of their published decimal places.
How it compares
An IPF GL score and a DOTS score are answering the same question on wildly different scales — elite is about 100 in one and about 500 in the other, so never quote one as the other. The older Wilks score is on a third scale again. In the IPF's 2020 model evaluation, IPF GL placed first and DOTS second.
Related: estimate a one-rep max from a set you have actually done, or check your relative strength on a single lift. Log your lifts in Bikkel and watch the number climb meet after meet.
Frequently asked
- What are IPF GL points?
- IPF GL points — GL for GOODLIFT, the IPF’s scoring system — are the International Powerlifting Federation’s official relative-strength formula, in use since 2020. They rank lifters of different bodyweights against one another, and they are what decides Best Lifter at every IPF competition.
- What does a score of 100 mean?
- It means you matched the golden standard: the total an average elite lifter of your bodyweight, sex and category would put up. That is not an accident of scale — the IPF chose the normalisation factor of 100 specifically so the points read as a percentage of the elite reference performance. Score 85 and you are at 85% of that standard; score 110 and you are 10% past it.
- Why do I have to pick classic or equipped?
- Because the formula has eight separate parameter sets, one for each combination of sex, equipment and event. A squat suit and bench shirt change what is achievable at every bodyweight, so equipped totals are scored against an equipped reference curve. Picking the wrong category will give you a confidently wrong number.
- What replaced what?
- The IPF used Wilks until 2019, briefly switched to a formula called IPF Points, and replaced those with IPF GL points in 2020. Most federations outside the IPF went to DOTS instead.
- How do IPF GL points compare to DOTS?
- They answer the same question on different scales, so the raw numbers are not comparable — an IPF GL score sits around 100 for an elite lifter, while the equivalent DOTS score is around 500. In the IPF’s own 2020 evaluation of the competing models, IPF GL ranked first and DOTS second.
- Is there a bodyweight limit?
- There is a floor but no ceiling. The IPF specifies the formula for bodyweights of at least 40 kg for men and 35 kg for women; below that the maths misbehaves. Because the denominator is an exponential curve that flattens towards a limit rather than a polynomial that turns over, it stays well-behaved however heavy the lifter gets.