What is the MAC approach in sport psychology?

By Relentless · Updated October 18, 2026 · 4 min read

The MAC approach teaches athletes to perform with nerves and doubt instead of fighting them. Here's how it works and what the research says.

What does MAC stand for?

MAC is short for Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment. Each word is a skill you can practice.

• Mindfulness means paying attention to what is happening right now, including your thoughts, feelings and body sensations, without judging them or trying to change them.
• Acceptance means letting those thoughts and feelings be there, even when they are uncomfortable, instead of fighting them or pushing them away.
• Commitment means putting your attention and effort into the action that serves your goal, whatever you happen to be feeling at the time.

Put together, the idea is simple. You don't need to feel calm or confident to perform well. You need to notice what is going on, let it be there, and keep your attention on the task.

Where did the MAC approach come from?

Frank Gardner and Zella Moore, two psychologists, introduced MAC in 2001. They laid out the theory in the journal Behavior Therapy in 2004 and published a full step-by-step program in their 2007 book, The Psychology of Enhancing Human Performance. The book organizes MAC into seven modules, starting with education about how thoughts and emotions affect performance and ending with how to keep the skills going after the program.

MAC grew out of acceptance-based behavioral therapies, which were changing clinical psychology at the time. Gardner and Moore adapted those ideas for athletes and other people who perform under pressure.

How is MAC different from traditional mental skills training?

Traditional psychological skills training, often called PST, teaches tools like goal setting, imagery, self-talk and arousal control. Many of those tools are useful. The difference is in how they treat uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. A lot of PST aims to reduce them or replace them, for example by telling yourself to calm down or swapping a negative thought for a positive one.

Gardner and Moore argued that trying to control, eliminate or suppress thoughts and emotions can backfire. MAC takes the opposite route. It treats nerves and doubt as normal parts of competing and trains you to perform with them.

Here is what that looks like on a start line. Your heart is pounding and you think, "I'm not ready." A control approach says to force that thought out and replace it. A MAC approach says to notice it ("I'm having the thought that I'm not ready"), let your heart pound, and bring your attention back to your plan for the first 200 meters.

What does the research say about MAC?

The research on MAC is still growing, and most studies are small. Here are the clearest results so far.

• Elite athletes (2019). Torbjörn Josefsson and colleagues randomly assigned 69 elite athletes from several sports to MAC or to traditional skills training. The MAC group improved more in sport-specific mindfulness, emotion regulation and self-rated performance, and the performance gains were linked to the improvements in mindfulness and emotion regulation.
• College athletes (2018). Michael Gross and colleagues compared MAC with traditional skills training in 18 NCAA Division III female athletes. Over time, the MAC group reduced substance use, hostility and emotion regulation problems compared with the skills training group, and coaches rated the MAC athletes' performance as better after the program than before it.
• Beach soccer players (2023). Fatemeh Sabzevari and colleagues ran a randomized trial with 34 elite beach soccer players who did seven weekly MAC sessions. Compared with a control group, the MAC group improved in cognitive flexibility and self-rated sports performance, and those gains held at a two-month follow-up. Rumination, the habit of replaying negative thoughts, did not change significantly between groups.

For the wider picture, a 2022 review by Marc Lochbaum and colleagues pulled together 30 meta-analyses in sport psychology. Psychological factors that support performance, such as confidence, cohesion and mindfulness, showed a moderate positive relationship with performance.

These results are encouraging, but they come with limits. The samples are small, several outcomes are self-rated, and follow-up periods are short. MAC is a well-reasoned approach with early evidence behind it, not a proven guarantee.

How can you practice the MAC approach?

You can start with a few minutes a day.

1. Check in. Sit for a minute and notice your breathing, your body and whatever thoughts show up. You aren't trying to clear your mind. You're just noticing.
2. Name it. When a strong feeling shows up, label it in plain words: "This is nerves" or "I'm having the thought that I'll fade." Naming a thought makes it easier to see it as a thought.
3. Let it stay. Instead of arguing with the feeling, let it sit there while you keep going. Nerves can come along for the race.
4. Pick the next action. Choose one concrete thing that matters right now, like your first step, your breathing or your race plan, and put your attention there.
5. Reflect afterward. After practice or competition, write down what you noticed and what you did with it. Over time you'll see patterns in how you respond to pressure.

Is MAC the same as mindfulness meditation?

No. MAC uses mindfulness, but it adds acceptance and values-based commitment, and it was built around sport. Meditation apps teach general relaxation and focus. MAC is aimed at helping you act on what matters in the moments when you're under pressure.

How Relentless uses MAC

Relentless organizes its lessons around mindfulness, acceptance and commitment. The app tracks each one on a 0 to 100 scale and updates it as you complete lessons, and the library groups its exercises the same way. Coaches build programs on top of that structure, so a lesson on race nerves or self-talk still trains the same three skills.

Train this with Relentless. Short daily lessons from mental performance coaches, on iPhone. Free trial for new subscribers.

References

1. Gardner, F. L., & Moore, Z. E. (2004). A mindfulness-acceptance-commitment-based approach to athletic performance enhancement: Theoretical considerations. Behavior Therapy, 35(4), 707-723. doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(04)80016-9
2. Gardner, F. L., & Moore, Z. E. (2007). The psychology of enhancing human performance: The Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) approach. Springer Publishing Company. www.springerpub.com/the-psychology-of-enhancing-human-performance-9780826102607.html
3. Josefsson, T., Ivarsson, A., Gustafsson, H., Stenling, A., Lindwall, M., Tornberg, R., & Böröy, J. (2019). Effects of Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) on sport-specific dispositional mindfulness, emotion regulation, and self-rated athletic performance in a multiple-sport population: An RCT study. Mindfulness, 10(8), 1518-1529. doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01098-7
4. Gross, M., Moore, Z. E., Gardner, F. L., Wolanin, A. T., Pess, R., & Marks, D. R. (2018). An empirical examination comparing the Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment approach and Psychological Skills Training for the mental health and sport performance of female student athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 16(4), 431-451. doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2016.1250802
5. Sabzevari, F., Samadi, H., Ayatizadeh, F., & Machado, S. (2023). Effectiveness of Mindfulness-acceptance-commitment based approach for rumination, cognitive flexibility and sports performance of elite players of beach soccer: A randomized controlled trial with 2-months follow-up. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, 19, e174501792303282. doi.org/10.2174/17450179-v19-e230419-2022-33
6. Lochbaum, M., Stoner, E., Hefner, T., Cooper, S., Lane, A. M., & Terry, P. C. (2022). Sport psychology and performance meta-analyses: A systematic review of the literature. PLoS ONE, 17(2), e0263408. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408

This guide is for general education and isn't medical or mental health advice. If you're struggling, talk to a licensed professional. In the United States, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.