Most of arm wrestling's equipment has looked the same for decades: a standing table, two elbow pads, two pin pads, two pegs. The MAC Table is one of the sport's few genuine redesigns — an attempt to fix a specific, long-standing problem in competitive arm wrestling by rethinking the elbow pad itself.
What the MAC Table is
The MAC Table is a redesigned competition table created by Ian Carnegie, a veteran Canadian arm wrestler and promoter nicknamed "The Grippler." It's named after his promotion, MAC — Major Armwrestling Championships. It has since been adopted by the Team Arm Wrestling Federation (TAWF), which runs its matches on the MAC Table.
It's best understood as a table and a ruleset together: the redesigned hardware and the standardized start and foul procedures built around it are presented as one integrated system. According to independent reporting, Carnegie built the table for one core reason — to reduce fouls in professional matches.
The signature feature: a built-in foul boundary
The heart of the redesign is the elbow pad. The MAC Table features a 9.5″ × 10″ black interior pad surrounded by a 1″ raised red border. That red border isn't decoration — it is the rule, and the league recently simplified how it works:
- The red border is a visible warning line — a clear, shared cue for both the athlete and the referee that the elbow has reached the edge of the legal zone.
- You are allowed to ride the red line. Touching or riding the red is not a foul.
- The foul happens the moment your elbow crosses the red line. Once the elbow goes past the red, it's a foul — no judgment call required.
Because the boundary is a physical, color-coded line rather than a referee's eyeball estimate, both competitors and the referee can see exactly where the limit is. (Fouls still accumulate under TAWF's wider ruleset, where three fouls lose the match.)
The advantages
1. Elbow fouls become objective
This is the strongest argument for the design. On a standard table, the elbow foul is one of the most contentious calls in the sport: a referee has to judge, by eye across the table, whether an elbow lifted "no matter how insignificant" and whether it gained an advantage. The MAC Table turns that subjective judgment into a visible line: the elbow is on the black (clean), riding the red (a shared visual warning that's still legal), or across the red (a foul). A built-in, color-coded boundary that both athletes and the referee can see is a genuinely sound way to reduce the most disputed call in officiating.
2. More room to compete
The "more space to fight" claim is literally true on the dimensions. A standard WAF elbow pad is 7″ × 7″; the pro WAL circuit uses roughly 7″ × 9″. The MAC pad is 9.5″ × 10″ — materially larger than either. More legal pad area means the elbow has more room to travel during the dynamic shifts of a pull before it crosses into a foul, which is the one MAC advantage that can be checked against outside data rather than taken on the promoter's word.
3. Fewer fouls, cleaner matches
Reducing fouls is the table's stated reason for existing, and it follows logically from the first two points: a clearer legal zone plus more room inside it should mean fewer borderline calls and fewer stoppages. Independent reporting confirms foul reduction is the design goal — though there isn't yet published data measuring whether matches on the MAC Table actually foul out less often than on standard tables.
4. Faster, more consistent starts
The MAC ruleset pairs the table with a standardized start — a fixed "set grip" and a consistent command sequence ("close your thumbs," "close your hands," then "GO!") — which the league credits for quicker, cleaner starts. This is the table's framing as by design; it's a reasonable claim, but it's the league's, not yet independently verified.
5. Built for broadcast
A redesigned table that produces clearer calls, fewer stoppages, and decisive finishes fits a sport trying to become a TV product. TAWF is explicitly built for broadcast — teams, a scoreboard, a national deal — and a table that keeps matches fast and unambiguous serves that goal. (TAWF attributes most of its spectator appeal to the team format and scoreboard, so treat this as a complementary benefit rather than the table's headline.)
An evolving design
The MAC Table isn't a one-off. Carnegie has iterated on it through multiple versions (a "MAC 2" table and beyond), refining the build over time. The table appeared in practice and event footage around 2024, and featured at MAC events such as MAC 3 (Toronto, March 2025) before being adopted as the competition surface for TAWF's league play.
What's proven versus what's claimed
In the interest of being straight about it: the MAC Table is promoter-driven and not yet independently evaluated by the wider arm wrestling community. The things that hold up to outside checking are the larger pad (verifiable on dimensions) and the objective foul-boundary concept (a logical fix to a real, well-documented officiating problem). "Faster starts" and "more decisive wins" are the league's stated aims rather than measured outcomes.
One thing the table does not claim is to make the sport safer. Arm wrestling's serious injury — a spiral fracture of the upper-arm bone — comes from body position and technique, not pad design (see arm wrestling injuries). A rigid, regulation table is always safer than a wobbly backyard one, but no source, including the league's own rules, presents injury reduction as a MAC Table benefit.
Where to go next
- See how elbow fouls and officiating work in general in arm wrestling fouls & refereeing.
- Read how the rules and major championships are organized.
- Learn about the team-based league that adopted the MAC Table.
- New to the sport? Start with Arm Wrestling 101.