Mad Abs Fitness

AVOID AVOID AVOID
Scam artist who will take your money. She has two felonies in two states (one when she was 18 in Georgia and one in Washington in 2007). She is not licensed to be a personal trainer. That expired years ago. She will cancel frequently for insane reasons and offer too-​good-​to-​be-​true deals. She owes me $ 1000 for unused training sessions.
On one occasion she asked me to buy another package because she needed an abortion and the second time, she asked me to buy a package because she could no longer afford rent at the gym she used.
Either she had a bunch of friends write reviews for her in 2011 or she’s seriously crumpled since then, which is really sad.

I like Madelyn as a person — she is very upbeat and has a good sense of humour — but as a TRAINER, she is extremely unreliable, inconsistent and disorganised.
Her workouts were never boring, she kicked my ass and I felt good after. BUT that’s only when I got to see her, which is about once every 2 – 3 weeks. She would often cancel at the very last minute, as I was putting on my shoes to leave for the gym. A few times she was a complete no-​show and I sat by myself in the gym waiting for her.
I would get texts with a myriad of excuses/​sob stories on why she couldn’t make our session — from being sick with (insert type of ailment), car problems, money problems, relationship problems, family problems and every other imaginable horrible thing that could happen to one person. At first I had no reason to doubt her, s**t happens and I’m a reasonable person. But what kind of trainer — a role model of health and fitness — gets sick every other week?! And what kind of person has this much «crap» happen to them, unless the powers that be must really hate them?!
I am not a push-​over and always listened when Madelyn talked to me about her life and her issues. Really, I was just in zen mode and trying to get through the sessions I foolishly purchased. After a year, I had used 33 of 36 sessions, of which I had to keep track of, she never even counted them I suspect. We had move away from Seattle and I couldn’t even be bothered to ask for a refund of the last 3.
Madelyn, if you are reading this, I’m sure you do have many obstacles to overcome but so does everyone else. I sincerely hope you do yourself a favour and sort your life out before taking on any other clients.

I think the best way to describe Madelyn is a liar and a fraud.
At the beginning of this year, I was looking for a trainer to help me get back into shape. I found Madelyn on Unilocal and was so excited she was local, especially after I read all these raving reviews about her. I met her in person and proceeded to buy the largest package of sessions I could with her, with the idea that I would be back in shape before summer in no time. She fed me some pretty good BS, told me I needed the biggest package and how I would need two sessions a week. I left the studio feeling great and excited that I was making a positive investment for myself.
Immediately after doing that, I had a gut instinct that I had made a huge mistake. Within the first week of buying my package, I started receiving text messages from Madelyn asking me to buy another before we had started our first one because she didn’t have enough money to pay her rent and bills. She also blew off our first session, too and said she was too sick. It was like she had done a 360 from when I had met her.
Next came the frequent cancellations — sometimes happening minutes before and one time I even had to call her from the studio and ask where she was, because she didn’t show. Madelyn blew me off about 75% of the time, would reschedule constantly and then reschedule those rescheduled sessions due to being sick, her dog getting attacked, her new medicine making her too tired, having a friend’s intervention she had to go to, being in a car accident and one time said she had been served to go to court. She wouldn’t even remember her own stories she’d told me so it was becoming quite obvious than many of them were untrue. I had spent so much money on a package and really just wanted to finish them. Quite honestly, I didn’t want to believe that someone was horrible enough to find people in a vulnerable state and take advantage of them… but that is definitely what she was doing.
My final breaking point was during one of our rare sessions, she told me she had to go in the back for a minute. Then entered a man with a suit case and they went into the back room and closed the door. Obviously doing some kind of deal on the side (my guess is drugs). It was obvious she was doing something she shouldn’t but it made me really uncomfortable and I got creepy vibes from it all.
Shortly after, I found out Madelyn was not honest about any of her credentials, has not renewed them in years and has no business license. She was also kicked out of IanFitness too where she was renting for not paying the owner. So, she basically scammed a ton of people to get money from us and ran.
I asked Madelyn for a refund and I have received small amounts of money back, but we agreed on my money being fully refunded after 60 days and she has now said she has no money to refund me. She also has said she has filed for bankruptcy and was in court for getting evicted and I’m sure that’s another one of her crazy stories. So you’re welcome for the hundreds of dollars you got from me, Madelyn.
I hope this Unilocal review will help others avoid the mess I got myself in. I also hope you will take your money and invest in a personal trainer that is reliable and honest by ALWAYS checking their credentials as a website and Unilocal reviews are not enough.

I had a pretty terrible bike accident back in 2009. After 4 years, 3 reconstructive surgeries and a few years of not riding, I found myself a bit heavier and about to get married. I decided to look into hiring a personal trainer.
I’d never done anything like that before and rarely spend so much on myself, but I was committed to making some changes. That’s when I turned to Unilocal and found Madelyn Fairbanks. She told me everything I wanted to hear: it was «very serendipitous that [I’d] emailed [her] when [I] did, because [she’d] just had to let a client go because she is needed cross-​country to deal with a family emergency & [she] had to refund her package,» she’s «been through some really super tough crap that made it reeeeally hard to shape up, both physically & emotionally, which [she thinks makes her] a much better trainer because [she] truly [understands] what it’s like to start from ground zero.» She also told me that in order to see results, we should meet «2x/​week minimum.» Then she offered me a package that seemed too good to be true!
I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I’ve heard it too, but I wanted to believe Madelyn so much. I mean, look at her Unilocal reviews! People have nothing but glowing things to say, and when I checked her website, I saw that she was certified by both ACE and NASM. I wish I had done a better job researching her, but I was just so excited to finally be moving forward towards a healthier new me.
Eager to get started, I bought the training package on ¹⁰⁄₂₉ & scheduled my first session for ¹¹⁄₃. Come 11/​3, I received an email from Madelyn stating that she had accidentally double booked and would have to cut my session a half hour short. I figured it was just a minor scheduling mistake and thought nothing more about it. Until it became a pattern. In the ten weeks that followed that 1^st session, Madelyn was sick with the flu twice, double booked again, had her car break down, spent the night in the ER, been in a car accident, had to get a restraining order, and was assaulted and held captive in her own home. She cancelled 10 out of the 17 sessions that we’d scheduled, often just before our appointments, and on two separate occasions, she completely stood me up.
Overall, in 2.5 months, I had exactly 5.5 sessions with Madelyn. That averages to slightly more than 1 session every 2 weeks with a personal trainer who initially told me she’d need to work with me «2x/​week minimum» in order for me to get results. Naturally, I realized that this arrangement was going absolutely nowhere and was a waste of money. When I told her I didn’t think she had the time to be an effective personal trainer to me and politely requested a refund, she refused and became defensive, saying that she felt I didn’t believe her excuses and that she would not be refunding my money because all sales were final.
I never indicated that I didn’t believe all of these terrible things were happening to Madelyn, but she’d put me in a very uncomfortable and unprofessional position. As her client, there was no reason for me to know these details of her personal life. All she had to do was say, «I am not in a position to be your personal trainer right now.» Instead, she strung me along, feeding me unfortunate excuses that made it really difficult for me to fire her, and when I finally did– when I finally worked up the nerve to tell her that although I’m sorry about everything she’s going through, I’m not getting what I need from our business relationship– she turned everything around on me, like I was insensitive and somehow out of line. It was as if she expected me to support her no matter what, but as her client, that’s not my job. Her refusal to negotiate a refund when I’d done everything I reasonably could to be flexible, especially after one of the very first things that she’d ever told me was that «[she’d] just had to let a client go…& [she] had to refund her package,» made me suspect, so I began looking into her credentials.
Madelyn’s website claims that she is both ACE and NASM certified, but as it turns out, when I called ACE and NASM, both organizations told me that she was not certified, that she had been in the past, but that both certifications expired back in 2011. I contacted L&I who told me that operating as a personal trainer without current certification is provider fraud in our state. I checked with the city of Seattle and learned that there was no city-​issued business license registered to either a Madelyn Fairbanks or MadAbs Fitness. The deeper I dug, the more I realized everything I was afraid of was true. I had been scammed. Hard. By someone who told me everything that I needed to hear.
To this date, I have still not received a refund from Madelyn. I filed a dispute with PayPal, who ruled in my favor and was able to recover about a third of my money, but Madelyn has not responded to any of my requests for a refund since January.

I’ll try to not make this a thousand pages, but I really cannot say better things about Miss Madelyn as a personal trainer.
I started with Madelyn in July after reviewing a bunch of trainers on Unilocal.I had a gym membership but I was mostly doing cardio and yoga because I had no idea how to use machines and the weight room scared the bejeesus out of me. I was slightly over a normal BMI when I started, 5’7″ 162 lbs, and absolutely no strength training experience whatsoever. I had to use 2.5 lb dumbbells and no weights on the barbell, do modified pushups and burpees with a bench, could barely do a 30 second plank, and could run at a speed of 4 on the treadmill. I was a comfortable size 10, and could squeeze into an 8 if I didn’t mind the muffin top and sausage casing look.
During our first meeting she was very interested in how much contact I like — texts, emails, phone calls? Did I like to be reminded to go to the gym on my own time? Could I email her a food log? She asked my short term and long term goals, my current diet, any food restrictions — all basic stuff but definitely interested in what kind of person I was and how I responded to things so that she could incorporate that in her training. It’s that — and the results — that keeps me coming back.
Madelyn has an ⁸⁰⁄₂₀ rule — be good 80% of the time, and let yourself be bad the other 20%. As a girl who loves her vices (I’m looking at you booze, tv, and dessert), I love that she doesn’t expect her clients to give everything up. She has good tunes, her workouts change often and are never boring, she’s motivating and keeps me laughing during our sessions (I really like when she’s yelling that I am making the exercise I’m doing my bitch), and she’s always making sure I’m pushing myself to break through the walls I think I have, but she also makes sure I don’t hurt myself, and has never made me feel bad if I needed a break.
I flew home for a wedding in September and my friends and even parents of friends that I haven’t seen in a long time all mentioned that I looked great. My mom visited me last month and said my muffin top was gone. And by Halloween, I was able to fit into a catsuit that didn’t look half bad.
I actually happened to start working with her when she was going through some personal issues. She has rescheduled my sessions a lot in the last few months, but never without plenty of warning and never without good reason. And she would call, text, or email me to make sure I got a workout in on my own that would equal what she would’ve done with me. For everything that she has done for me, and keeps doing, and for what she charges (which I’ve looked up, is lower than most personal trainers when you break a session package down), her having to reschedule me a few times is such a small inconvenience that it barely registers on my radar — I just thought I’d mention it to keep the review honest.
It’s been about 4 months, and I am now 147 lbs, can fit comfortably into a size 6 (our next goal is to get me in a 4), am using 8lb dumbbells, 10lbs on the barbell, can almost do strict form pushups, can easily do 60 second planks, and run at a 5.5 comfortably on the treadmill. I can also tell you the names of my major muscles, am not scared of the weight room at the gym (even though I do feel a little silly with my small weights. Baby steps!) and last Monday I did 50 burpees in under 6 minutes. Madelyn makes me feel like an ass-​kicking warrior girl, and even though I know I have a long way to go to get where I want to be, I know I will get there with her because she makes me actually want to work out (what???) and be the Lara Croft bad-​ass that I know is in there somewhere.

Madelyn is my absolute hero. I am not naturally fitness inclined, and when I emailed her about needing to finish grad school, write a thesis, travel 50% of the time for work and plan a wedding within two months without dying, she didn’t even flinch. Even though I was starting from couch-​potato shape, Madelyn went beyond personalization, giving me workouts and helping me tailor a realistic and awesome diet, emailing me both butt-​kickings and affirmation as needed. Training in person with her helped me overcome both my fear and loathing of gyms/​working out, a perfect mix of reinforcement, butt kicking and letting-​me-​cry-​on-​her-​shoulderness (to then get up and wail on my frustrations kickboxing style).
She was a CRUCIAL element to getting through this key time for me, and since I’ve moved abroad I’ve been searching for another Madelyn to no avail. She makes my top 5 list of reasons I’m excited to move back stateside, no joke.

This is my first Unilocal and I couldn’t think of a better person to be my first Unilocal!
Madelyn Fairbanks is AMAZING, AMAZING and AMAZING! I would give her a million stars if I could!
Madelyn will give you a «ftinasty» a** kickin’ in both her boot camp classes and personal training… and you will LOVE it! She is always bringing in new moves and workouts that are different, FUN and challenging (at whatever fitness level you are) to both her personal training sessions and classes. She is always there with a positive attitude, a smile on her face and making you laugh– which makes getting an a** kickin’ way more enjoyable! :)
As my personal trainer she created a program that focused on my goals, not hers or anyone else’s. I would not be as fit as I am now without her. She keeps me challenged both mentally and physically. Madelyn doesn’t just dish out fantastic training sessions, she also guides you through the nutrition/​diet side of things! I am blown away (and still am) with the time and commitment she puts into her clients outside of the gym with emails, creating workout plans, and helping you with your diet. You truly get your money’s worth!
I could go on and on about Madelyn. She has helped me become, in Madelyn’s words, «fit as a fiddle» through boot camp and personal training. She is one determined, passionate women and ready to help you get «FITNASTY!»
If you want to get «fit as a fiddle» get to Madelyn’s classes or in her gym NOW… you will not be disappointed!!!

I started taking Madelyn’s classes when she taught at a gym in Cap Hill, then followed her to Volunteer park and Miller Community Center when she launched MadAbs a couple of years ago. I finally added personal training sessions with her this past year, when my work schedule changed and I couldn’t make classes as regularly. I can honestly say she is the best instructor and trainer I’ve come across. And she is absolutely a bargain.
The classes are high energy, fun, friendly and challenging. Her training sessions are never the same, and she can either keep you on track for goals you set or just make sure you get in a good workout every time. I go to her for personal sessions, but still try to make as many classes as I can.
My strength and fitness – and jeans size – has absolutely changed for the better, and I’ve made some friends in the process. You won’t be disappointed.

Madelyn is amazing and inspires you to do better each class

Madelyn is AMAZING! Her fast paced, intense and innovative boot camp classes keep you moving non-​stop for over an hour but their always over before you know it! She constantly brings new techniques moves and combinations the classes are never dull. Her sunny mood and smile brings even the most staunchly solo exerciser into a welcoming and supportive community of boot campers. She has a unique ability to make everyone feel like a rock star, proud of what you can accomplish even at the most beginner level. All while dishing out a fantastic a**-kickin’.
She brings all of this to her personal training sessions as well. Before training with her I was a devout gym goer, in pretty good shape, but not without limitations. Working with Madelyn has instilled in me the confidence to smash down those limitations one by one and show ‘em who’s boss! I’ve accomplished more than I thought I ever would and have loved the hard work more than I ever thought I would. It is the first time in my life I have WANTED to work out so hard and so consistently. As a trainer, she always goes above and beyond. Your goals become her goals. She listens to you and your body, and gives and attentiveness to each of her clients that I have yet to see anywhere else. She approaches training holistically through both diet and exercise and offering expertise in both for optimum attention and results. She’ll whip that booty right into shape!
Both her boot camp classes and personal training leave you to go back again and again, if nothing else, for her magnetic personality that makes everyone feel good!
I cannot recommend her highly enough, she’s absolutely my hero.

Madelyn in amazing! WIth her classes I have achieved levels of fitness I never imagined were possible. That also helped me realize that I could achieve goals in other areas of my life that I never thought were possible. Madelyn’s positive energy is incredibly inspiring. You will never work out harder — or have more fun. Take her classes NOW. She will definitely be a famous fitness guru before very much longer.

I cannot say enough good things about Madelyn and her bootcamp classes! I’m normally a gym goer/​runner but was looking to switch things up a bit last year and add in a different element to my normal routine. I’m so glad I chose Madelyn’s bootcamps because I saw GREAT results from the classes and had fun while doing it. After regularly going to her classes I got into amazing shape — cardio wise and strength wise. For those of you that consider yourself to be hardcore, her classes are definitely worth your time. The nice thing is that even if you aren’t you can scale the workout to your needs :) and the better you get, the more you can do! It feels great to get through a class and say, «Wow I rocked that!»
Madelyn is a great instructor who is super motivational but not intimidating or negative — the opposite — she’s extremely positive and pushes you to do your max — somehow she makes you want to! She also genuinely cares about her clients and has all sorts of ways to make you feel special going to her classes — fun extras like lists of routines you can do while you’re not in class with goals, tips on healthy eating and recipes on her blog, healthy treats, prizes for friendly workout competitions — she’s so creative and the list goes on. It’s these small things that make all the difference in personal touch that you don’t get elsewhere.
She’s also great 1 on 1 for personal training, she makes things friendly but get ready to work! Like others have mentioned her classes and sessions are also very affordable, so there’s no reason not to go!

I am a very lazy person. And now that I’m in my thirties, it’s unfortunately showing.
I’ve always had trouble finding a good work out régime. I usually take a few classes at some gym and then quit. But not with Madelyn at Mad Abs. She has an uncanny way of making working out interesting and fun. She uses a good mix of enthusiasm and guilt… err… «motivation» to get you hanging on until the very end of each exercise. «Anyone can do ten more if you really want it enough.» ;) And she really mixes up her routines. They are NEVER boring.
I love her summer bootcamps in Volunteer Park and her gym classes at Miller Park. She’s amazing and knows all of her students (no matter how often you go). She’ll modify for whatever your level, makes you feel comfortable in class, and makes sure that you get what you need out of each and every workout.
The classes are intense but after going just twice a week for two months I’ve lost ~7 pounds and can do more laps and push ups than I could in high school. That’s amazing given I do not exercise (until I found Madelyn) and my eating habits are terrible (although she has helpful tips for that as well)!
Thank you Madelyn! Please do not ever stop teaching here in Seattle!

I have tried the gym… but I hate working out by myself! Madelyn makes the group workout fun, non-​intimidating and totally rewarding. She keeps it going the entire time which is awesome, but also makes sure that people are working at their own level or helping to modify.
Do it and Madelyn will help you rock it!

Madelyn not only is the best trainer in Seattle but she also is the best boot camp instructor in the whole city. Her classes are super hard and intense but you know you’re working your a** off and not wasting your time. She really pushes you but she also encourages you to go at your own speed.
She really really cares about her clients. She doesn’t bore you with the same routine every single week.
When I leave her class I feel so awesome because I know that I’ve worked hard. I would recommend her to anyone.
P. S. Her boot camp classes are very affordable.

It hurts, but you love it! Madelyn is great, the class is intense, and it’s outside. Pretty much it’s the best.