Calculator methodology
How the powerlifting progress calculator works
The calculator compares your numbers with 100 similar powerlifters from drug-tested competition categories and shows how their DOTS, squat, bench press, and deadlift changed over the next year.
What the calculator does
You enter your sex, age, bodyweight, squat, bench press, and deadlift. The calculator uses those values to calculate your total and DOTS score, then finds 100 powerlifters who started from a similar position.
It shows how those lifters’ DOTS and individual lifts changed about one year later. Each of the 100 lifters counts equally.
Which competition results are included
The calculator uses 102,596 one-year comparisons created from the OpenPowerlifting dataset. Results must be from sanctioned Raw full-power meets held from 2010 onward, recorded as drug-tested categories, with age, bodyweight, DOTS, and all three lifts available.
OpenPowerlifting’s tested label means that a result counts as drug-tested. It does not mean that every lifter was personally selected for a test.
For lifters who competed more than once in a year, only their best qualifying DOTS result is used. That result is compared with their best qualifying result in the following year when the meets are approximately 9–15 months apart.
How the calculator finds similar lifters
The calculator first limits the comparison to the same sex. It then looks for lifters with a similar age, bodyweight, DOTS score, and balance between squat, bench press, and deadlift.
Lift balance means the percentage of the total contributed by each lift:
total = squat + bench + deadlift squat share = squat / total bench share = bench / total deadlift share = deadlift / total
Age, bodyweight, DOTS, and lift percentages use different units. To compare them fairly, the calculator scales each difference using its interquartile range (IQR)—the spread of the middle 50% of values in the data.
Only the closest match from each person is kept, so the final group always contains 100 different lifters. The closest 100 are used to calculate the result.
Show the matching calculation
The following calculation is performed separately for male and female lifters. Each IQR is also calculated within that sex.
match difference = √( ((age match − age user) / age IQR)² + ((bodyweight match − bodyweight user) / bodyweight IQR)² + ((DOTS match − DOTS user) / DOTS IQR)² + ((squat share match − squat share user) / squat share IQR)² + ((bench share match − bench share user) / bench share IQR)² + ((deadlift share match − deadlift share user) / deadlift share IQR)² )
A lower value means that the recorded lifter was more similar to the user. Squat, bench press, and deadlift shares are all included in the match.
- Calculate the match difference for every eligible comparison.
- Keep the closest comparison from each lifter.
- Select the 100 lifters with the lowest match differences.
- Give all 100 lifters equal weight when calculating percentiles.
How to read your estimate
| Result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Median | The middle result: half of the matched lifters improved more and half improved less. |
| Middle 50% | The range from the 25th to the 75th percentile. |
| Middle 80% | The wider range from the 10th to the 90th percentile. |
DOTS, squat, bench press, and deadlift are summarized separately. Because each median is calculated independently, the three median lift increases may not add up exactly to the median DOTS increase.
How close are the estimates?
The calculator was checked using 2,000 lifters whose later competition results were already known. Their later results were hidden, estimated from older data, and then compared with what they actually achieved.
The table shows the typical difference between the calculator’s median estimate and the actual result:
| Result | Typical difference |
|---|---|
| DOTS | 12.0 DOTS |
| Squat | 7.5 kg |
| Bench press | 5 kg |
| Deadlift | 7.5 kg |
The displayed ranges were also close to their intended meaning: the middle 50% range contained the actual result in 51–61% of cases, while the middle 80% range contained it in 83–86% of cases.
Show the validation details
The check used 2,000 starting results from 2023 and 2024, split evenly between male and female lifters and sampled across the DOTS distribution. For each case, the calculator could use only older comparisons and could not match the lifter to themselves.
The number of matched lifters was also checked. A very small group can produce unstable estimates, while a very large group can include lifters who are less similar. Groups of 50, 100, and 200 were tested, along with giving closer matches more weight. The results were similar, so 100 equally weighted lifters were used as a straightforward middle ground.
| Result | Median bias | Median absolute error | Middle 50% contained result | Middle 80% contained result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOTS | +0.5 DOTS | 12.0 DOTS | 51.2% | 82.5% |
| Squat | 0 kg | 7.5 kg | 55.9% | 82.8% |
| Bench press | 0 kg | 5 kg | 60.5% | 85.7% |
| Deadlift | 0 kg | 7.5 kg | 56.5% | 84.6% |
Median bias shows whether the estimates generally leaned too high or too low. Median absolute error is the typical size of the difference between the median estimate and the result that actually occurred.
Important limitations
- The data does not include training experience, programming, consistency, injuries, or body composition.
- Progress can only be measured for lifters who competed again the following year.
- Gym lifts may not be directly comparable with competition lifts because judging standards and equipment can differ.
- Drug-testing programs differ between federations, and a tested-category result does not confirm that the individual lifter was tested or drug-free.
- The result describes what happened to similar competitors. It cannot predict exactly what one individual will achieve.
Data and privacy
The calculator downloads a compact, anonymous version of the OpenPowerlifting data. It does not include names, meet names, locations, or exact dates, and the calculation runs in your browser.