Dr. Mike Israetel on Gordon Ryan's 'I Could've Done It Natural' Claim

Gordon Ryan said something bold in a recent interview, and this being BJJ in 2026, it didn't take long for someone with an exercise science PhD to weigh in. Ryan, still the reference point for what dominance looks like in Jiu Jitsu, claimed he could have reached the top of the sport without performance-enhancing drugs — that steroids helped him become the best version of himself, but weren't the reason he became the best, period. Dr. Mike Israetel, the sports scientist, YouTuber and BJJ black belt who's built a career explaining exactly this kind of question, mostly agreed. Mostly.

What Ryan actually claimed, and what Israetel pushed back on

Watch the clip on YouTube to hear it in Ryan's own words: "Do you need steids to be the best athlete in the world? No, I don't think so. I think that I could have done all this natural, and I could have been the best in the world without stoids. What I do believe is that you need st**oids to be the best version of yourself as an athlete." It's a careful distinction — rank versus ceiling — and it's the kind of claim that only someone with Ryan's resume gets to make without being laughed off the mats.

Israetel didn't just nod along. Asked directly whether that logic holds, he drew a line specific to grappling: "Depends on the sport. In Jiu-Jitsu, no, but they sure help." That's a real qualifier, not a throwaway one — Israetel is saying the sport itself is unusual enough that Ryan's claim is more defensible in BJJ than it would be in, say, powerlifting or sprinting. He backed the second half of Ryan's statement without hesitation, agreeing that steroids do enhance physical output. "They just enhance you," he said. "There's a reason people take them. It's not cuz they make you worse." No hedging there — the health tradeoffs are a separate conversation, but the performance claim stands.

Why a scientist believes technique can outrun chemistry

The heart of Israetel's take is what actually separates Gordon Ryan from the rest of the ADCC field, and he doesn't credit a training cycle for it. He described Ryan as "a master technician and tactician," someone who sequences attacks in advance and methodically closes off an opponent's options before they know it's happening. That's a skill set built over a decade of mat time, not a supplement stack. And Israetel put a number on the hierarchy that should reassure every gym-level grappler wondering if they're missing something: "There is no stroid you can take that makes you that much better at Jiu-Jitsu compared to, like, adding a session a week of Jiu-Jitsu. Lifting weights is going to make you better at jiu-jitsu than taking sterids." Read that twice. According to the guy with the exercise science degree, an extra class on your schedule and a real strength program will move your BJJ further than anything in a vial.

Why this matters even if you'll never compete at ADCC

It's tempting to file this whole exchange under "elite athlete gossip" and scroll on, but the underlying question touches every academy in the country: how much of high-level Jiu Jitsu is actually physical, and how much is just better decision-making under pressure? Israetel's answer — that BJJ rewards technical mastery more than almost any combat sport, but that physical enhancement still moves the needle at the margins — is a more honest answer than either side of the usual internet argument wants. It's not "PEDs don't matter" and it's not "PEDs explain everything." It's that Jiu Jitsu has a wider gap between elite technique and elite physicality than most sports do, which is exactly the promise the art has always sold: a smaller, sharper practitioner beating a bigger, stronger one.

That framing matters for testing policy too, which remains thin across BJJ's biggest stages — ADCC tests no one, and IBJJF's USADA program only reaches the absolute-division winner at Worlds. When a voice as credentialed as Israetel's says technique still outweighs chemistry in this particular sport, it's a reason to keep pushing for cleaner competition rather than shrugging and assuming drugs decide everything anyway.

For the rest of us rolling three or four times a week with a day job on either side, the actual takeaway isn't about Ryan or Israetel at all. It's the throwaway line buried in the exchange: an extra session a week and a real weight program will do more for your Jiu Jitsu than any shortcut you're tempted to chase. That's not a controversial take. It's just the boring, correct one — the kind that gets lost whenever Gordon Ryan says something quotable. See you on the mats.

Original report via BJJEE.