This semester we had a maths assignment which, surprisingly, was about the Wilks Total and something called the Siff Values (published by Mel Siff). Part of the assignment was to determine whether or not Wilks’ Formula favoured any individual bodyweight. Unsurprisingly it does, but to a far larger extent than I thought.
What is your experience with comparing lifters with Wilks, and have you ever heard much about the use of the Siff Values?
Oi dumb it down for me in a few statements not some graphs that I gotta interpret myself k thnx. I’m under the impression that Wilks favours fat cunts
Basically a 52kg lifter only has his total dropped down to 98% of his actual whilst a 125kg lifter has his total reduced to 52% of his actual total. This would be fine, except that relationship between the percentage reduction and lifter’s bodyweight is not strictly linear (read: fair and impartial to bodyweight).
Notice how this graph isn’t straight? To me, this mostly indicates that lifters around the 65-85kg mark have the most to gain from using Wilks.
I am more confused than before lel
The way you are explaining this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Everything that I have heard on this topic was saying that Wilks favors the heaviest and the lightest lifters while those in the middle basically get screwed. But you say
So please explain.
As you probably know the wilks coefficient is designed to be able to compare lifters of different body weights as it is generally given that lifts as a multiple of body weight are harder to achieve the heavier the lifter (4xbw squat at 300lbs bw is more impressive than 4xbw at 150lbs) - this coefficient implies this relationship is not linear (I’d agree). But what it actually is, nobody can know.
Now IF you think a fair comparison would be a linear (straight line) you are implying that rate of increase in amount lifted should remain constant regardless of the lifter’s weight (I’d disagree)… And if this is the case, using the current formula, the biggest advantage would be to the lifters where the line is at its least steep (120kg-124kg lifters not 65-85kg) and most unfair for the smallest lifters.
If I had this assignment I’d pull some data on actual meet results and do some analysis on that and draw a conclusion. Otherwise trying to say if it is fair or not you would need to determine a more appropriate relationship between bodyweight and weight lifted.
For the record I dont really have a strong opinion on the value of wilks - its a pretty good estimate but far from perfect. And as the other guys said it is generally seen to favor lifters and the high and low ends of the body weight ranges.
As an aside the wilks formula really falls apart at super low or high body weights - e.g. a 1000kg total at 150kg is a 553 wilks, but a 1000kg total at 250kg is a 677 wilks! So maybe you could say it clearly favors the SSSHWs!
I didn’t believe it so I punched the numbers into a wilks calculator, that is crazy. If you are fat and weak you don’t need to worry about getting stronger, just get fatter and you will win. Yeah, this calculation is totally flawed. Robert Wilks also sounds like a fucking loon, but that’s another story.
I agree - and 205ish kg is where just being heavier is an advantage, which isn’t THAT ridiculously heavy.
As silly as using wilks to determine best lifters is, I do quite enjoy the Kern US Open and the hype around it.
There doesn’t seem to be much hype over the SHWs at the US Open, I can’t even name one. The 308s look like one of the most competitive classes, actually most lifters that I have been hearing about are between 220s and 308s. Joe Sullivan was supposed to be in the 198s but in the other thread someone said he didn’t make weight because his scale was off, if Belkin is there then Joe doesn’t stand a chance. Maybe nobody cares about the lightweight guys, what can I say.
Joe Sullivan is posting nude selfies on Instagram, he must be off his meds.
Looks like I need to work on my graphing skills 
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At least the data looks cool
He is. Main reason I have nothing to do with PA even though it’s no longer an IPF affiliate.
If you had “Wilks score” in place of “Wilks total” (and Wilks points instead of kg) it would make more sense since you already showed what kg total each line represents, but I get the idea. I think…
I probably could have been clearer, each line represents and actual total. For example, the blue line demonstrates what Wilks Total is be given to a lifters of varying mass who total 375kg.
That still doesn’t make sense, how can each line represent a total when the vertical axis is “Wilks total” (which isn’t actually a thing)? Wilks score is not the same as a total and is measured in points, not kg. I appreciate your efforts but something here just doesn’t add up.
Oh in that case it is Wilks points. The y-axis is the total plugged into the wilks formula
Those graphs pretty much tell the story, you could also do body weight against total (in kg) on the y axis for a given wilks score, which may be a little more intuitive to the reader.
IDK how big of an assignment this is, but if its worth it, if it were me I would see if any federation or one of the powerlifting record websites have easily downloadable data and see if there seems to be a bias towards a particular weight classes with their wilks scores
I’ll be doing that anyways. The second part of the assignment is to compare with something called the Siff coefficients, which ‘predicts’ what a world-lass lift or total should be for any weight. I’ve almost finished that part and I’ll chuck it up here, but so far the ‘predicted’ records seem very consistent with reality
