A great distinction. But I tended not to read it with physical goals in mind... I find it strange these days how many geeks seem to have heroic physical goals.
"Like every other guy on earth, I’ve wanted six pack abs forever."
I suppose I've wanted it at one time or another, in the abstract "that'd be nice to have" way I've wanted, say, a jetpack. But I've never been interested in putting the time or effort into achieving that level of fitness. I'd much prefer the jetpack. Or even better, learning something new.
An hour or two of hard running every few days to get a nice head-clear and endorphin rush, to be reasonably fit and healthy... then I'd much prefer to play video games and study algorithms.
IMO one is better off training to _do_ something rather than acquire a external physical characteristic. Most of the people I know who train consistently and have impressive physical achievements (a) enjoy training and (b) train for intrinsic goals, often quantifiable goals.
Like "enter competition X", "win championship Y". Or some tangible set of lifts or times in a run/row/swim, etc.
Wanting to have six pack abs is a ridiculous goal. For some, it's ridiculously easy and sets the bar way too low; for others, irrelevant or even counterproductive.
On the other hand, wanting six pack abs will get you in the right frame of mind to have a nice heart-to-heart conversation with all those skeletal women running grimly along on the treadmills for hours. They, too, depend on extrinsic motivations that are chiefly concerned with appearance.
I wouldn't say "six pack abs" are "heroic", but they are good motivation for getting back into fitness. Some people use marathons to do that, some people do six pack abs.
I've done both (and training for an ultramarathon now) and of the two, six pack abs actually took a lot less time/week than the marathon training did (by a long shot).
Yeah, it makes more sense to (e.g.) want to have the core strength to do 50 crunches followed by a pilates 'hundred followed by a ten mile run (the cause). The low body fat and developed muscles that leads to the six pack abs is the effect of that kind of conditioning.
For most people six pack abs aren't an end goal, but rather a means to get more attractive partners as a bonus on top of becoming fit. It's not actually heroic. In fact getting to the level of fitness where you can do "an hour or two of hard running" is MUCH harder.
"Like every other guy on earth, I’ve wanted six pack abs forever."
I suppose I've wanted it at one time or another, in the abstract "that'd be nice to have" way I've wanted, say, a jetpack. But I've never been interested in putting the time or effort into achieving that level of fitness. I'd much prefer the jetpack. Or even better, learning something new.
An hour or two of hard running every few days to get a nice head-clear and endorphin rush, to be reasonably fit and healthy... then I'd much prefer to play video games and study algorithms.