David Justice Ross Living Life to the Fullest

Brains and brawn have always been considered traits that have to exist separately from each other. Visions of muscled-up oafs and scrawny scientists are practically embedded into our mainstream culture. Jocks are dumb. Nerds are weak. This narrative is, like most narratives, largely untrue. A genius can be in great shape. An athlete can be highly intelligent. Rarely, however, does an elite level of smarts meld with a high performance athlete to the extent that we are impressed by accomplishments in both fields. If you add in that this dual level of distinction happens to be found in a 63-year-old man, well, you’re in for one heck of a story.

This story is about David Ross. You’ve likely never heard of Ross, but you have no doubt been affected in some small way by his work in pattern recognition and information management solutions. He holds a degree in Physics from Yale University and an advanced degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Sciences from Stanford University. He is also the chief architect of the US Treasury Department’s Pay.gov Verification System and a former applied mathematician for public- and private-sector aerospace initiatives. He has held senior engineering positions at Ford Aerospace and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and he has consulted for the US Post Office.

Of course, there is one way that you may have heard of him; you could be one of the 850,000 plus viewers who have checked out the impressive photo that his son posted of his physique on Reddit.

“That photo is kind of what started my interest in talking to Life Extension®,” Ross says. “I am 63 years old, I’ve run 36 marathons in seven years and I look how I do without any chemical additions. I have no joint pain. All I do is exercise, eat well, and take Life Extension products.”

Discovering Life Extension

“I first heard about Life Extension many years ago from Dr. Greg Fahy,” Ross says. “He presented the whole idea about how you don’t just target for inefficiencies, but you supplement to retain your youthful vigor. At that point I started reading the magazine and doing my own research about some of the recommendations.”

Ross says that he was always reasonably athletic and that he was a varsity soccer player in high school. His favorite exercise for most of his life has been hiking and in 2005 he decided to hike across the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. With a peak elevation of over 7,000 feet and distance of 44 miles, hiking along the entire range is not something most people would tackle in a single day, but Ross isn’t most people.

“It’s a spectacularly beautiful hike,” Ross says. “I was hiking with a friend and one day one of us suggested that we try to do the whole hike, but in one day. We started training and that involved longer and longer hikes and walks. The first time I was walking and I got to 26.2 miles, I realized that was a marathon distance. It occurred to me that I could complete that distance and it was encouraging.”

Right after Ross’ day-long hike of the mountains, an old college roommate of his called and asked if he was up for a crazy challenge.

“My old roommate wanted to know if I was interested in running a marathon…in Antarctica,” Ross says. “I thought, ‘why not?’”

As one can imagine, running 26 yards in the South Pole would be challenging enough, but running 26.2 miles is borderline insane.

“It’s minus nine degrees out and you’re running in snow shoes,” Ross explains. “The course changes because the ice isn’t static. My son, who ran with me, describes it as running 1,600 meters in the Sugar Bowl in snow shoes and then doing it over and over again. Since the ice moves, one lap around the course there could be a hill, the next time, not. The entire run took twelve hours.”

The Challenge Continues

Ross’ goal these days is to do a marathon in all fifty states and Washington, DC, as well as run one on every continent. As we said in the opening of the story, he has 36 down, so he’s well on his way.

“After about my 20th marathon I decided that I’m not a great marathoner and that I just complete them,” he says. “I concluded that I needed more core work, so about four years ago I gave myself the Christmas present of a trainer. I work out with him twice a week and on my own three times a week.”

During the winter, Ross says he’s in the gym six days a week. When the weather is nicer, he only spends four days inside and the rest he’s outside, hiking and running. He says he doesn’t lift weights to try to be healthy, rather, he lifts weights because he can and he enjoys the feedback he gets on his muscular physique.

“I’ve been very pleased with my weight training,” he says. “I’ve actually lost weight doing it. I am careful with the leg work that I do because I still train for running. I think it’s important for people to know that if you’ve taken care of yourself and you take the right supplements, you can do these things if you want to. I see people that I haven’t seen in years and they say, ‘My God, you look excellent.’ I take no hormones. I take no chemicals. People my age need to know this is possible.”

The Supplements

“My testosterone levels have always been within the ‘normal’ range,” Ross says. “But I started taking Super MiraForte and about six weeks afterwards, my trainer stops me and says, ‘What’s different?’ He stopped me because I was lifting weights that I had never lifted before. I thought, maybe it’s the Super MiraForte and the higher level of free testosterone. I went to have my testosterone checked and it hadn’t changed, but my performance had.”

On a regular basis, Ross takes the Life Extension Mix, resveratrol, whey protein, and CoQ10. When he’s in training he takes creatine to help increase his muscle mass and to reduce muscle pain.

“Creatine dramatically reduces my muscle soreness,” he says. “I’ll take it three to four times a week after my loading phase. I’ll also take Fast Acting Joint Formula occasionally when I run to help my cartilage.”

Ross’ diet is comprised of a high intake of protein and vegetables with an avoidance of refined sugars.

“I don’t worry about carbohydrates because I get plenty of complex carbs from the vegetables,” he says.

He realizes that people may be skeptical about his accomplishments, but he has a very simple answer for that.

“I’m sixty-three. I’m doing more now than I was ever doing at forty and I do it without chemicals,” he says. “Right now, I weigh almost exactly what I weighed when I graduated college. I used to take medications for reflux and high cholesterol and now I don’t take any. Those facts speak for themselves.”

If you have any questions on the scientific content of this article, please call a Life Extension® Health Advisor at 1-866-864-3027.