Joel Therien, co-founder of the 7 Minute Workout, launched the fitness program in mid-2011 with Chris Reid. It promised results from seven-minute sessions, three times weekly, for a $9.97 monthly fee. Therien, also CEO, promoted himself as a "world class natural body builder" on the company's site.
Therien also owns Global Virtual Opportunities (GVO), a web hosting company. GVO's "Host Then Profit" multi-level marketing scheme was previously identified as primarily a recruitment operation. The 7 Minute Workout appears to be another GVO-branded venture under Therien's direction.
The program offers fitness routines for various levels, from total beginners to competitive athletes. Each routine is marketed as requiring no more than seven minutes, three times per week. The specific content of these programs remained undisclosed to non-subscribers, requiring payment to access details.
By mid-2013, the 7 Minute Workout changed its compensation structure, moving to a pass-up model. This article details the original plan.
The initial compensation plan designated retail customers as "students." To qualify for commissions, distributors had to recruit at least one new student or distributor per month. Recruiting four people in a single month would cover a distributor for four months of commissions.
Commissions stemmed from two distinct sources: Fast Start Bonuses and Binary Commissions. The Fast Start Bonuses operated on a unilevel structure. Each new recruit or customer created a new leg under the distributor, forming independent downline trees. Customers could not recruit, but distributors could, with new members remaining in their respective legs down to infinity.
Payouts for Fast Start Bonuses scaled with a distributor's rank. A Fitness Student, paying $9.97 monthly, earned $20 per new recruit or customer. Fitness Counselors, who recruited five people, received $25 per personal recruit and $5 on downline recruits. Fitness Directors, with 10 recruits and three Fitness Counselors in separate legs, earned $30 personally and $10 on downline recruits. Fitness Executive Directors, having 20 recruits and three Fitness Directors across three legs, earned $35 personally and $15 on downline. The highest rank, Fitness Ambassador, required 30 recruits and three Fitness Executive Directors in three legs, paying $40 personally and $20 on downline.
The binary commission structure used a 1/3 and 2/3 pairing model. A distributor sat at the top, with two legs branching below. As these filled, two more branched from each node. A minimum of six people, split 2-4 across the two sides, was required for cycles. The system automatically paired members to maximize these cycles. For example, a distributor with 60 people split 35 on one side and 25 on the other would generate eight full cycles. This meant 16 of the 25 people on the smaller side would pair with 32 from the larger side. Each cycle paid $20, totaling $160 in this example.
Joining the 7 Minute Workout cost $149.97 upfront, plus the $9.97 monthly fee. The compensation plan itself presented a balanced structure. It did not penalize retail sales nor did it disproportionately favor recruitment. The Fast Start and Binary components were designed to coexist without undermining each other.
The core product, however, posed a significant flaw. Fitness programs, especially those delivered digitally, are typically a one-time consumption. Users watch videos, print PDFs, and save content locally. They then possess the program indefinitely. While 7 Minute Workout offered multiple programs, there was no indication of staggered content releases. Customers could download all available material and then cancel their subscription.
Therien reportedly used this same fitness system since his teenage years, and was 39 years old at the time. This suggested a lack of ongoing updates or new content for subscribers. Without new material, nothing would compel a retail customer to continue paying $9.97 monthly after acquiring all the content. This model created a high churn rate among customers. If the programs did not automatically delete from a user's device, the monthly subscription model offered little long-term value for customers, which in turn undermined the viability for distributors.