Due to various supporting characters unable to catch up, Dragon Ball has a lot of hard-workers unable to keep up with the ever-growing threats in the series with respect to some others.
- Yamcha has an extreme case of this, particularly in Dragon Ball Z. Even in the original series, he was often used for The Worf Effect despite training a lot, particularly for Martial Arts tournaments. For the third tournament at the end of Dragon Ball, he even does Training from Hell alone in the wild for three years, invents a new move from scratch, and still loses in his first match. In Z, Yamcha never wins a single fight, ultimately realizes he'll never be useful in protecting the Earth, and gives up after almost dying a third time in the Android Saga. By the time of Dragon Ball GT, he had still never achieved any of his goals in life (getting married and/or winning a World Martial Arts Tournament).
- Vegeta. He trains and trains and trains, but Goku is most of time stronger than him, and the only saving grace for him is that thanks to his AND Goku's constant training, they're both the strongest characters in the entire series. Yes, Goku trains (though it's usually unclear just how much, or whether it's because he just gets better training), too, but at nowhere near the level of Vegeta. The funny thing is that Vegeta was supposed to be the super-talented prodigy. Whis suggests in Resurrection 'F' that Vegeta's problem is that he trains too hard and damages his muscles from overexertion, while Goku allows himself to rest and recover- though this also means Goku lets his guard down when Vegeta wouldn't, which can be its own problem. However, in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, he finally manages to win a match against Goku.
- There's also the fact that Goku trained under several masters of martial arts throughout his life, learning various techniques and training methods that compensated for his low (for a Saiyan) inherent power, while Vegeta, for most of his life, was too arrogant to even think of asking someone to train him. When Vegeta finally swallows his pride in Super and asks Whis to train him, he rapidly catches up to Goku. But then Goku asks Whis to train him, and, well...
- Averted with Goku and Gohan. Gohan has far greater inherent potential, but does not find fighting fun, so he prefers having a normal life to constant practice. Goku, on the other hand, spends most of his life (and whatever parts of his afterlife we saw) undergoing ever more extreme Training from Hell and eventually outpaces Gohan. Gohan in his mystic form ends up becoming the most powerful unfused character in the entire series due to his potential, but is soon outpaced by Goku and Vegeta, who kept up their training while Gohan finally knuckled down and concentrated on studying. Although in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero he caught up once more after unlocking his Beast Form.
- It's played completely straight when you compare Saiyans with non-Saiyan characters: Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu eventually more or less pretty much spent all their time training after a certain point, and remained hopelessly behind the Saiyan characters nonetheless. Neither of them could even put a scratch on Nappa! Even though Tenshinhan was able to harm Semi-Perfect Cell, managed to survive Super Buu's Human Extinction Attack, and later showed up against Buu...the pink git practically only needed to cough to send Tien flying (though that's more thanks to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil).
- There's also the fact that Saiyans get a literal, quantifiable power boost from almost dying. At one point on Namek, Vegeta's strategy is "have Krillin shoot a hole through my chest, and then get Dende to heal me". It's the only time anyone invokes it, implying that it's less efficient than training (and it does nothing to raise any sort of skill, just power level), but the fact is that their biology is built for this trope. Yamcha, Krillin, and Tien may gain skill by fighting to the death, but they'll never get the same gains that Goku and Vegeta get in that same situation.
- Really, anyone who isn't Goku (and to a lesser extent, Gohan) falls victim to this trope. Piccolo, despite having no family or friends to distract from his constant training (the only person he spends any time with is Gohan, and essentially all the time they spend together is training), and at one point being STRONGER than the Saiyans during the Android Saga, is nowhere near as strong any time afterwards. By the time of Resurrection 'F', Vegeta has managed to restore himself to relevance, but the non-Saiyans are still little better than mooks, no matter how hard they train. Piccolo does manage to catch up in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, but only because of the Dragon Balls.
- This is lampshaded by Master Roshi with the quote on the main page, as back in the original series we had no idea what a Saiyan was. Master Roshi gets to lampshade it a second time during the Android Saga when he admits he was once called the 'Strongest in the World' but now he'd 'give anything just to be able to help out again'. He does a pretty good job in the Universe Survival Saga, where he manages to get three eliminations on his own before succumbing to exhaustion.
- Then there is the case of Goten and Trunks, who are the youngest of the Super Saiyans. Gohan, Vegeta, Chi-Chi and Goku each had their own expressions of shock when they found this out. The three older Saiyans had to go through sweat and blood to accomplish their transformations, and the two brats just got theirs when they were playing in the woods without even knowing what Super Saiyans were at the time.
- This seems to have become a trend for human-Saiyan hybrids, as the end of Dragon Ball GT shows one of Goku's descendants (his great-great grandkid) casually using the Super Saiyan transformation in a tournament sparring match along with one of Vegeta's descendants.
- The Super Saiyan transformation comes in response to a need, not a desire. In all known cases, the form has been initially triggered by either desperation or indignation. However, Saiyans are somewhat detached (with the exception of Goku), which is why it is difficult. For hybrids such as Gohan, they possess the emotional connection of humans allowing them to reach it easier. Kid Trunks, Goten and Goku Jr., being young children, have the easiest time being forced into desperation or indignation.
- Goku Jr., Goku's great-great-grandson becomes a Super Saiyan defending a bear against a pig-demon thing, a clearer example compared to Trunks and Goten.
- The best way to describe this trope in Dragon Ball is that while hard work pales before natural talent, said talent must be maintained with hard work. Saiyan hybrids like Gohan, Goten and Trunks have more potential than their full-blooded Saiyan fathers, but said fathers are also constantly training to improve themselves while Gohan is more focused on studying and Goten and Trunks on being kids. Dragon Ball's infamous So Last Season is also a factor. While anime filler shows that by the end of the Namek saga, the Z fighters (yes, including Yamcha) are powerful enough to defeat the Ginyu Force (thanks to King Kai training them), who in their introduction were powerful enough to easily defeat Vegeta, the threats from the next saga put even Frieza to shame, so they're stuck being useless.
- This is also demonstrated by Future Trunks, who's the last living fighter in his timeline and thus doesn't have the leisure to slack off like the others. When he returns in Dragon Ball Super, he's dealt with Majin Buu (well, Babidi and Dabura — he didn't let them come close to reviving Buu) and has spent a year fighting off an Evil Twin of Goku. As a result, he's achieved Super Saiyan 2 and is (at least according to the manga adaptation) equal to Super Saiyan 3 Goku in terms of power. And that's before he achieves a form that's seemingly just a step shy of Super Saiyan Blue.
- Defied with Hit, who notes that as he has no transformations or inherent boosts to make himself more powerful, he has to get better the old-fashioned way. And it works. He manages to defeat Goku in their sparring match (if partially because Goku used a Dangerous Forbidden Technique that was about to run out and disable him), and by the next time Goku sees him, he's improved by leaps and bounds and is able to (temporarily) kill Goku.
- Completely and utterly averted with Jiren: hard work and training made him more powerful than gods.
- This trope explicitly comes into play in the movie Resurrection 'F': after Frieza is wished back to life by his minions, he says that he thought being a prodigy was all he needed, only to receive a rude awakening thanks to Goku and Future Trunks. Thus, he resolves to train for the first time in his life so he can return to Earth and take his revenge on the Saiyans. His training succeeds, as he becomes powerful enough to challenge post-series Goku. The real kicker? It only takes him four months to come close to Goku's level, who had been training for years. And at least part of his "training" seems to consist of him torturing Tagoma. However, this trope isn't played completely straight. Frieza increased his raw strength, but didn't learn to control or maintain his power. Once he reached his super form, he could only keep it for a short time before his energy rapidly drained. Goku calls Frieza out on this, saying that instead of completing his training, he rushed to Earth as soon as he achieved his new transformation. It's re-averted when Frieza meditates while in Hell to learn to control his ki, and by the time of the Universe Survival Saga, he's able to keep up without exhausting himself.
