That’s the kind of discussion that’s left for the diehards down at the pub, along with conversations about could a great from the past been a great in the modern era.
It just doesn’t translate well to spectators. I know literally no one that cares that Brian Shaw’s 3 reps of a 190kg log (less than bodyweight) is kinda less impressive than Mateusz Kieliszkowski’s 2 reps of the same log (giving up 50+kg in bodyweight).
Most sports either use a handicap or a division of some kind. There’s a reason they stay away from calculations.
That’s not really a good comparison, in powerlifting we have an objective measurement of ability (weight on the bar) that you can’t compare to those kinds of sports.
The point of Wilks is to be able to compare the abilities of lifters in both different weight classes and men vs. women. You can’t expect Sergey Fedosienko to lift more than Ray Williams, and maybe Wilks doesn’t fully account for differences in ability, but what other solution do you have.
I guess you didn’t hear about PL in the World Games. Four weight classes - lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight, SHW. Winner determined by Wilks and not total.
Well, yeah, of course. Greg Nuckols has an article that might interest you titled “Who’s The Most Impressive Powerlifter?”. Here’s one quote for you:
“The formulas used to compare relative strength in powerlifting (most notably the Wilks formula) have their own issues. The two biggest problems with the Wilks formula are that it’s not regularly updated, and it’s notably biased against middleweight lifters.”
I see no reason to oppose using Wilks or any other formula to compare lifters in different weight classes, but it needs to work better. If Sergey Fedosienko and a couple SHWs win every time then something is wrong. And that is probably at least part of the reason why PL at the World Games was still split into 4 weight classes.
Anyway, in something like boxing it really doesn’t make sense to compare pound for pound ability because it is a sport where the objective is to knock someone out and there is not a quantitative measure of ability other than wins and losses an who they fought. In PL it’s you against the weight and the weight doesn’t have bad days or make mistakes. Wilks isn’t great, but it’s better than multiples of bodyweight.
Why not just make the weight classes more competitive and then we don’t need to worry about who won best lifter at the meet? No one seems to care about best lifter in weightlifting or strongman.
I don’t think that people really care about best lifter in PL that much either, it’s just another medal after you have already won your weight class. At my last meet they gave out awards to the best lifters in each class but there was no best lifter award. Maybe because they knew that Erik Willis was competing and nobody could stand a chance against him, he came 4th at IPF worlds last year. At my first meet he was there and said his hip was hurting from a long car ride a day or two before, he had competed at NAPF championships the week prior. He went light on squats, maybe 500 (and he can squat about 700) but felt better by the time deadlifts came around and pulled 740. If he can win best lifter on a bad day then there is no point in having a best lifter award at a local meet.
As I already said, SHWs will always win based on biggest total simply because being bigger allows you to lift more. There are some exceptions, like Krzysztof Wierzbicki and Yuri Belkin with their deadlifts, but they still can’t compare to the top SHWs’ totals. If powerlifting was a sport where performance was determined solely by the lifter’s total with no consideration of bodyweight then there are very few people under 300lbs. who would be anything beyond mediocre. And I would not make any attempt to compete in it. I can see the point of meets like Big Dogs, just like WSM, where is it only the biggest and strongest lifters involved, but considering that powerlifting already has limited appeal it would be a bad idea to discredit all the smaller lifters.
This discussion started because of this:
But here’s the thing: Ray Williams and Sergey Fedosienko are winning best lifter in every IPF meet. The biggest guy and the smallest guy. Ray is obviously the strongest, wilks or not, and Sergey is lifting weights that would be decent for a guy twice his size. Ray is more than three times his size - can you really expect Sergey to total more than him? And does the fact that these guys win over and over take anything away from people coming in first place in other weight classes and setting records? I wouldn’t say so.
Look at Leon Brown, at the NAPF meet he set a M2 squat record on his second attempt, injured his back on the third, then went on to set an open bench WR. He took a token deadlift because his back his back was messed up and his total was low, he didn’t place well. But he also set several records - would it have been better if he had placed maybe third or so but not set any records? It depends what you value more. Wierzbicki squatted raw at the Worlds Games, despite it being an equipped meet. I’m not sure if he benched in a shirt or not, but his bench was nothing crazy either. However, he did pull 420kg on a stiff bar.
It’s all about priorities, there are many different way to win something in PL. Do you want a record or a medal? Best lifter is just another award.
Right. This is why I don’t understand why people are so heated about giving best lifter to the guy with the biggest total, rather than the guy with the best WILKS.
Feel free to swap in the words “interested”, “concerned”, “curious”, “involved”, etc. Essentially, I am observing the presence of conversation about this topic, which leads me to believe there is SOME degree of interest or concern regarding it. If there was not, I would imagine that, when someone says “the best lifter shoudl be the highest total”, there would be no reply/discussion about it.
it’s really amusing to see Chris’s fervent interest in PL, and the genuine belief that it can be a great sport.
If there was only one dominant federation rather than a dozen, if the rules all made sense, if we took ‘gear’ out of the equation, if we removed sumo… basically if we did every single thing that would clearly make it a better sport, it would still be a dumb sport in the grand scheme of things.
To be completely fair, I know that not everyone thinks spectator-friendliness is integral to a sport being a good one, but I factor that in heavily. And powerlifting will never be spectator-friendly.
I find that training for powerlifting is actually more spectator-friendly than the competition itself. You could probably make a reality show out of the day-in, day-out events of any serious powerlifting gym. Between the greater variety of lifting being done, the egos, and the drama you could probably slap together something watchable with enough slick production.
I actually think removing raw would be a better step for spectator friendly. The average Joe has no idea what a bench shirt or squat suit is, and so, when they see a guy squatting 1200lbs, that sounds a lot cooler than 1000lbs, even though the 1200 is with an unlimited ply Inzer something or other.
I like to antagonize powerlifting by saying that, to create unity, we need LESS rules, not more. Unlimited ply, 72 hour weigh ins, high squats, all the drugs you want, etc etc. Include EVERYONE. THAT is unity. Anything else is segregation.