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Saiyan Strength Increase After Damage and Healing
Goku (Kakarot) demonstrated the Saiyans' ability to bounce back stronger from extreme damage throughout his childhood before the Saiyans became known. After his first fight with Daimon Piccolo (the father/progenitor of Piccolo), he was badly injured. Korin (of Korin Tower and the scientifically inexplainable senzu beans) healed him with a senzu bean, thereby uknowingly increasing his strength then and there. After Goku drank the poison* Korin gave to him, he was extremely ill for most of the night, near to death, but when his body recovered he was much stronger than he had been, even enough to surprise Goku himself. He came back to defeat the empowered Daimon Piccolo soundly, but was again badly wounded. He was healed a third time, increasing his power yet again, before being sent off to train with Kami. (It was poor Kami who had to feed him through his third spurt phase of growth!)
* -- Korin's poison drink was supposedly an extremely ancient method of increasing one's power. However, the old adage "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is only really true for Saiyans; an average human under the same circumstances as Goku had been would have been severely debilitated if not killed, with extreme kidney and liver damage as well as possible brain damage. This is confirmed by Korin's confession that no human who had ever tried it had survived. Historical note: That "ancient potion" is similar to a method used by the old-time Saiyans to dramatically increase their strength in a short time for periods of emergency. Correlation, perhaps?
