Basic Trope: A person can become nigh-superhuman (or even actually superhuman) just by training hard.
- Straight: Fighting Fist, a member of the Justice Team, started with fortunate genes and spent years learning the martial arts. As a result, he can keep up with his more flashy-powered teammates in battles, even though he technically doesn't have any superpowers.
- Exaggerated: Thanks to Training from Hell from infancy, Fighting Fist is able to go toe-to-toe with gods. Indeed, thanks to his superior physical prowess, the laws of physics are just suggestions to him.
- Downplayed: Fighting Fist is by no means the strongest member of the Justice Team, but he is the most skilled and steady, making him a strong part of the team because of the focus gained from his training.
- Justified:
- If you happened to have excellent health and train eighteen hours a day, you too could pull off some pretty impressive stunts.
- Or the universe in question has Ki Manipulation or Functional Magic.
- Or the character is a Super-Soldier.
- Inverted:
- Hard Work Hardly Works or Boxing Lessons for Superman
- Alternatively, training too hard actually weakens the character due to sprains and stress injuries.
- Subverted: Fighting Fist claims to have gained his prowess through training, but in reality he's a mutant with Super-Strength and a Healing Factor. Whether or not Fighting Fist knew this can vary.
- Double Subverted:
- Which he then parleyed into even more impressive development through more Training from Hell.
- He loses his mutant powers, but can still fight effectively.
- He lied about that and is in fact normal, but because he works with mutants, he often avoids traps that are specifically designed to defeat them launched by people still thinking he's abnormal.
- Parodied:
- Bob, a ninety-eight pound weakling, sends away for the Charles Atlas training course. After one day of hard training, he's turned into a hulking mass of muscle who can defeat kaiju with his bare hands.
- Bob develops all the abilities one would normally expect from someone possessing Charles Atlas Superpowers....in addition to telekinesis!
- Charles Atlas himself is a superhero.
- Bob develops so much strength that he can go toe-to-toe with his world's Superman or Hulk equivalent.
- Bob basically becomes Captain America due to Charles Atlas Superpowers Training.
- Bob turns into a literal Angel due to Charles Atlas Superpower Training.
- Zig Zagged:
- Bob wants to be superhuman, but he's told superpowers only exist in fiction, so takes physical training to become a Badass Normal instead. This awakens his dormant superpowers, because he's really a superhuman placed with a normal family. Then its revealed that his superpowers simply enhance the effects of his immense training.
- Bob has both actual super-powers AND Charles Atlas super-powers.
- Bob displays superhuman strength through training and shows implausible rehab abilities down to regrowing a missing eye via facial exercises. He is from another universe where it is normal.
- Averted: All superbeings in the story have genuinely "super" superpowers of some kind and physical training just makes them better in a normal way.
- Enforced: "We want to show that 'normal' humans can contribute too. Have one of the Justice Team be just some guy that trains really hard."
- Lampshaded: "Since when does kung fu allow you to punch time?"
- Invoked: A man who wants to be a superhero in a world where superpowers don't exist plunges himself into Training from Hell in order to become the world's first.
- Exploited: Bob is the only one who can train to such levels, so he sells training sessions with him for exorbitantly high prices.
- Defied: "Train for years in some cold monastery? Forget it. I'll just swallow some Super Serum."
- Discussed: "Fighting Fist? Don't take this the wrong way, but are you absolutely certain you're not a mutant or something? 'Cause I know lots of other martial artists who train hard, and they can't do that stuff."
- Conversed: "After reading about Fighting Fist, I get the urge to actually go out and exercise for a while."
- Implied: Fighting Fist certainly does things that look superhuman, but whenever asked about his training he only gives out workouts humans can do.
- Deconstructed:
- The amount of training necessary to achieve such phenomenal physical prowess has left Fighting Fist with no time for other pursuits, such as learning to read, interacting with the opposite sex, developing job skills, etc.
- The fact that just about anyone can train themselves to be superhuman means that ill-intentioned people can become dangerous supervillains capable of shattering steel, shrugging off gunfire and outspeeding racecars just by training hard enough.
- While you can train yourself to become extraordinarily strong, it's still no match for genuine Super-Strength. When Fighting Fist gets into a fight with a superhuman villain, he's on the losing end of a Curb-Stomp Battle and needs his teammates to save him.
- Reconstructed:
- The Charles Atlas Superpowers aren't at the level of the actual superhumans, but his hard training at least proves that he works just as hard as them.
- There's a fighting force full of people who trained themselves to be superhuman, ready to take down those who would readily misuse their own hard-earmed gifts.
- Fighting Fist learns from his defeat, creating more effective fighting styles and preparing countermeasures to better deal with superhuman villains, and leaving those that are still too powerful to his allies.
- Played For Laughs: Fighting Fist's Sidekick and/or Mentor Archetype works as his tutor, wingman and otherwise life coach to balance out what he misses out in training.
- Played for Drama:
- The Charles Atlas Superpowers get him mistaken for an actual mutant/alien. This gets him in trouble with Fantastic Racists.
- Because he's technically "normal", Fighting Fist is allowed to be part of the Cape Busters or Anti-Magical Faction. He becomes a Hero Killer whose name inspires terror.
- A very bloody and gory three-sided war begins between Fighting Fist's Team, some Super Supremacist mutants and aliens, and Fantastic Racists who mistake Fighting Fist as either a mutant or an alien.
Are you ready to start training to make a new you? Then click the link Back to Charles Atlas Superpower!note
