Goku training?

[Deep Thought]

A member on MFG, who goes by the name of SayajinPerfection, informed me of this, and it's pretty interesting, too.

How did Goku become so strong in GT? He trained, right? Well, that's the problem. You might ask, what's wrong with assuming that he trained?

Well, training's not as simple as you think. One cannot simply just abstractly "train" and get tremendous power. "Training" is really about overcoming something that limits you.

Confused? Let me use a real life example. A fat, unfit person tries to do as many push ups as he can. It turns out that he can only do five. Doing six starts to cause terrible pain in his arms. So he decides to do five push-ups every day. For the first few days, he is exhaustingly tired. However, he starts to get less and less tired the more time goes on. Eventually, he can do five push-ups without even thinking about it. He can do six with little effort as well. So he does as many push-ups as he feels he can do. It turns out that he can do fifteen push-ups before he gets exhausted. So he does fifteen push-ups every day. Eventually, those require no effort as well, so he does thirty, etc, etc.

You might be saying "Dude, you are looking too far into this." but look, overcoming your limits is a prevalent theme in Dragon Ball! I'll use examples, only using DBZ instances though, to keep it short.

1. When Goku entered King Kai's planet, he could barely run and he could hardly jump ("hardly" being relative to Goku). As a way to get used to the planet, King Kai made Goku catch Bubbles. However, after spending months on the planet, and after trying to catch Bubbles 24/7 every day, he could barely catch him. After spending more time on the planet, King Kai's planet became like a second Earth to Goku. To make things more challenging, King Kai decided to make Goku learn the Kaioken and Genkai Dama. After spending months, using each day to hone these techniques, Goku mastered them and became even stronger. At that point, he was OVER 9000! and ready to go to Earth.

2. The next training instance is easy to explain. Goku uses twenty times gravity after mastering ten times gravity. This is comparable to someone doing twenty push ups after they could easily do ten. The twenty times gravity was really challenging to Goku at first, but, after a while, he mastered it. He then moved on to 30 times gravity, mastered that after a while, and then moved on to 40 times gravity...... until he got to a hundred. Then he mastered that after a while, and before he knew it, he was on Namek.

3. In the Androids-training arc, Piccolo and Gohan would be good training partners for him. I never really thought Goku became that much stronger from the Namek Saga to the Android Saga, anyway.

4. Mastering the nasty strain of the Super Sayajin transformation was something that was tedious for both Gohan and Goku. To add to that, they had the nasty conditions of the RoSat and they were constantly testing each others limits.

5. Who knows what Goku had to deal with in the afterlife? This one is up for grabs, I'm speculating that he spent most of his time achieving Super Sayajin 2 and 3. Also, I never thought Goku, in base, became that much stronger than his Cell Games self.

What's the point of all this? Well, in GT, Goku is so powerful that his base/Super Sayajin state is almost equal to his Z Super Sayajin 3 self. But, how? There's no way Goku is going to get any sort of training on Earth. What's he going to do, lift planets? You could say that he could train with a partner, but look:

Gohan: I'd go into this, but SayajinPerfection, again, summed this up more perfectly then I could;

"Gohan had settled down, there's no proof that he improved or even did serious training in the decade after Boo. In fact, it's quite suggestive to see that he didn't do serious training, he'd married Videl, built a house and had a kid, and had seriously put his nose in the books. His studies seemed to be his major priority when Trunks visits him looking for Goten." - SayajinPerfection

Could Goku call on Gohan for the occasional sparring match? Yes. For consistent, every say training? No.

Vegeta: Same thing as Gohan. Goku could call on Vegeta for a sparring match, but not for consistent training.

Goten: Goten poses no challenge for Goku, at all.

Gravity Chambers: Those belong exclusively to Vegeta, and Vegeta would let Goku know it.

Uub: It would ten years before Goku would even find Uub. Then it would take three to five years, AT LEAST, for Goku to just train Uub to Goku's basic level.

So how, exactly, does Goku become stronger?

[Rod]

GT is a plot hole, Super Saiyajin 4 Goku gets a good ass-kicking from the one star dragon, when he turns back to his normal state a single attack isn't enough to even move him.

But I don't know I never look to far into it, I just enjoy it

[JulieYBM]

As I remember being posted from the recent databooks...I believe training became about increasing one's ki. Son might have begun doing training that would increase his ki rather than his physical form.

[Bussani]

Good question. Exactly what I think about, too.

In the same regard, imagine what Gohan would have to do to get stronger after his Kaioshin upgrade. He's constantly stronger than SSJ3 at that point? I mean, Jesus.

The new guide points out that eventually you max your body out, or rather, there's a limit to how far you can toughen your body. After that, it comes down to drawing out/using ki efficiently I think, through meditation and further training with it. At least, this is what the guide seems to hint at when it talks about the meditation Goku did in both the RoSaT and the afterlife.

Maybe that's something to do with it? But I do think GT's depictions of character's strengths is a little...random. One minute Goku can't do something as a Super Saiyajin, then he goes and does it in his base form, or something. It does seem unlikely that he could gain so much strength when it took ridiculous levels of training to overcome those limits last time.

That said, when you compare what Goku and Vegeta went through to get their strength, to Goten and Trunks...you also have to go 'what'? I guess they are half breeds and 'the next generation is strong' has been a theme in Dragon Ball since before even Z (everyone overtook Master Roshi quite quickly, really). But it seems like everyone else had to work more for it than Goten and Trunks did.

[Rod]

As I remember being posted from the recent databooks...I believe training became about increasing one's ki. Son might have begun doing training that would increase his ki rather than his physical form.

True, that was the only way to defeat Buu besides brute force

[Bussani]

As I remember being posted from the recent databooks...I believe training became about increasing one's ki. Son might have begun doing training that would increase his ki rather than his physical form.

True, that was the only way to defeat Buu besides brute force

Well, raising your ki also increases your physical power and speed, so it all works out in the end.

[Bejiita]

Uub: It would ten years before Goku would even find Uub. Then it would take three to five years, AT LEAST, for Goku to just train Uub to Goku's basic level.

So how, exactly, does Goku become stronger?

I always assumed Uub would take less time to be on par with Goku's basic level (meaning his base form). Reason being is in the last episode Uub somehow manages to fight blow for blow with Goku in his current state, that's what makes watching that episode so great for me, the fact that Goku's basically reached the highest point of his limits at that time, and for this boy who only knows basic skills anyway to be fighting on par with Goku is quite shocking. I'm not saying he is more powerful, but the strength of Uub in that episode is seen as not much by many, you have to realise what is actually happening. It's not just a regular crazy DBZ fight, it's the strongest man alive versus an untrained re-incarnated Buu, and actually progresses to the kind of fight where Goku knows to dodge certain moves. If I'm not mistaken somebody in the epsode says that Uub is learning how to fight while he was fighting, something that never happens that quick in any part of DBZ. Even the block that makes Goku's wrist numb, those kind if attacks would have done damage if vital points were hit. I like the DBZ finale for this fight, as it represents pure power, but if you haven't watched the whole series properly, you won't get the same vibe unfortunately, since you can only know how much Goku progressed by watching the whole series, and understand why this final fight is one of the best. It just ends too quick, especially in the manga, the fight could have been longer.

So you could say after fewer than 5 years Uub would progress to a stage where Goku would also be benefiting from the training to further progress himself. By Goku finding a good person with the ability to become (nearly) as strong as himself, he can surpass his limits easier, which is Goku's goal, and also the episode title. Aside from that GT is just a plothole, and I'm not a big fan of it really, but there's more to Uub's power than people think, and it's also a reasonable excuse for Goku's high strength in GT if you want.

[Saiyan-Professor]

...That said, when you compare what Goku and Vegeta went through to get their strength, to Goten and Trunks...you also have to go 'what'? I guess they are half breeds and 'the next generation is strong' has been a theme in Dragon Ball since before even Z (everyone overtook Master Roshi quite quickly, really). But it seems like everyone else had to work more for it than Goten and Trunks did.

Daizenshuu #4 states concerning the second generation.

The tailless second generation are super ultra child prodigies.

Saiya-jin genes have an extraordinarily good compatibility with Earthling blood. Because of this, when the two races are mixed together children with formidable power are born. Particularly, those Halflings born without tails hide an exceptional battle power. There are many things that they naturally master from a young age, such as the ordinarily arduous transformation into a Super Saiya-jin.

Yeah they are a special case.