- Xande Ribeiro TRT experiment lasted four months — then the seven-time world champion walked away from it.
- He felt “terrible” and “bloated,” and noticed he was getting choked a little faster while rolling.
- He’s not anti-TRT: he’d go back on it if his quality of life dropped, but lifestyle comes first.
- His real target is 20-something athletes who reach for the needle before fixing sleep, stress, and recovery.
Xande Ribeiro has spent the back half of his career as the sport’s most credible lifestyle-first longevity voice — a seven-time world champion who, at 45, still trains and teaches, crediting recovery over chemistry. So when he told the Josh Button Podcast he tried TRT for four months and quit, it landed as more than a one-off admission. It was one of the most respected voices in Jiu-Jitsu describing, in his own words, exactly why he walked away.
Xande Ribeiro TRT: Four Months, Then A Fast Exit
Ribeiro’s account is a first-person case study, not a study. Speaking on the Josh Button Podcast, he described “a season” where he ran it for roughly four months before the side effects made the decision for him.
I felt terrible, you know, I felt bloated. People would touch my neck. I would be choked a little faster.
– Xande Ribeiro, on the Josh Button Podcast –
He didn’t need long to reach a verdict — “this is not for me.” The “choked a little faster” detail is his own self-reported observation: one athlete’s subjective experience, not a clinical ruling on what TRT does to grappling performance. Coming from a black belt who has spent his entire adult life under someone else’s crossface, though, it’s the kind of anecdote the room listens to.
Why He Quit: Wine, Sugar, And A Needle He Never Liked
His reasons were refreshingly ordinary.
I like my wine. I like my sugar. So I don’t think that matches with much with TRT.
– Xande Ribeiro, on the Josh Button Podcast –
He also never warmed to the mechanics of the treatment, saying the daily injection — the needle itself — was the part that gave him pause. None of it is a medical argument. It’s a 45-year-old deciding the intervention doesn’t fit the life he actually wants to live, wine and all.
The Door He Left Open
None of this makes Ribeiro anti-TRT. In the same breath, he drew a clear line.
But definitely, if it gets to a point where maybe I’m not having fun in bed anymore, or I’m lacking… maybe I’m in a bad mood or I feel weaker… then definitely I would do that.
– Xande Ribeiro, on the Josh Button Podcast –
The distinction matters. He is not against the therapy itself; he is against reaching for it before the fundamentals are in order. He even framed testosterone as the single most important hormone for a man — for clarity, strength, and decision-making. His issue was never with the molecule. It was with the ordering.
The Problem Isn’t TRT — It’s 22-Year-Olds On It
His sharpest criticism was reserved for young athletes.
What I’m not fine with is 20-year-old boys, 22-year-old boys that think they need to train 10 hours a day to be a champion to use this.
– Xande Ribeiro, on the Josh Button Podcast –
He framed TRT as an evolution of medicine — but insisted it is not an evolution of combat sports. That two-line distinction is the whole argument: medicine, when it’s genuinely needed, is legitimate. A shortcut to a world title is something else.
Lifestyle Before Any TRT
For Ribeiro, the ordering is the thing that’s broken. Before anyone reaches for testosterone replacement therapy, he wants the basics handled first.
The biggest problem of testosterone is not even maybe the food — it’s cortisol levels. If your cortisol levels are through the roof, you can’t do anything.
– Xande Ribeiro, on the Josh Button Podcast –
Then he rattled off the list — sleep, recovery, diet, time in nature, real relationships — the same levers behind the “does BJJ increase testosterone” question that older hobbyists keep asking. His own answer to staying sharp at 45 is the same one he preaches: disconnect and recover. This is the same lifestyle-first argument bjj-world has made before, that most grapplers don’t actually need TRT.
TRT’s Rise In BJJ — And Why Xande’s Voice Matters
Ribeiro’s comments land in the middle of a sport that has spent years normalizing the topic, as TRT for BJJ has grown from locker-room talk into an open pitch. The Gordon Ryan TRT conversation has been loud ever since his physique made it unavoidable, and Craig Jones TRT jokes have turned the subject into a running bit rather than a scandal.
Layer in the Joe Rogan echo chamber, and TRT after 40 has become a default talking point for aging grapplers. Against all of it, a seven-time world champion arguing that most grapplers probably don’t need it is the counterweight both the natural testosterone grapplers and the testosterone replacement therapy grapplers on the fence have been waiting for.
To be clear, TRT is a prescribed medical therapy — distinct from the anabolic abuse people mean when they talk about PEDs, and Ribeiro was never “doping.” But in a sport with famously loose testing, the lines blur, and the Rogan-adjacent hype can make a 22-year-old feel like the needle is the default. The Xande Ribeiro TRT story isn’t a takedown of anyone on it. It’s a data point from someone who tried it, felt worse, and went back to the wine, the sugar, and the mats.
