131: Accessory Exercises That Fix Squat, Bench, and Deadlift Plateaus
Accessory Exercises That Actually Fix Your Squat, Bench, and Deadlift Plateaus
You've been showing up, putting in the reps, adding volume, and you're still stuck at the same weight. So what gives?
Here's the thing: more of the same isn't the answer. If your squat, bench, or deadlift has hit a wall, grinding through more of those exact lifts without addressing why you're stuck is just spinning your wheels. In Episode 131 of Broads, Tara breaks down the real reason your lifts have plateaued, and spoiler: it's almost always a weak link hiding in plain sight. Fix that, and the lift follows.
More Squats Won't Fix Your Squat
This is the trap so many lifters fall into. The squat feels off, so you do more squats. But if the problem is glute weakness or knee cave, adding volume just grooves a flawed pattern deeper.
The fix? Bulgarian split squats. They sound intimidating (okay, they are a little brutal), but they're one of the most effective tools for forcing your glutes to actually do their job. Because you're working one leg at a time, you can't compensate by leaning on your stronger side. Your glutes have nowhere to hide, and that's exactly the point. Once those glutes come online properly, knee cave tends to resolve itself, and you'll feel dramatically more stable under the bar.
Your Bench Press Has a Sticking Point, Here's How to Attack It
Almost everyone has a specific spot in their bench press where the bar just... dies. Usually it's a few inches off the chest, right where the initial leg drive fades and your triceps haven't fully taken over. If you keep benching through that sticking point without addressing it, you're building strength everywhere except where you need it most.
Enter the paused bench press. By adding a deliberate pause at the bottom of the lift, you eliminate the elastic energy you get from a bounced rep and force your muscles to generate true strength from a dead stop, right at that sticking point. It's humbling (you'll drop the weight, and that's okay), but the carryover to your competition-style bench is real.
Two Big Deadlift Mistakes (and How to Fix Both)
The deadlift is sneaky. It can look like you're pulling correctly while a couple of key weaknesses are quietly capping your potential.
Mistake #1: Hips shooting up off the floor. When your hips rise faster than your shoulders at the start of a pull, your lower back ends up doing work it shouldn't. The culprit is almost always weak hamstrings. Tara breaks down how Romanian deadlifts (RDLs) directly target that hamstring strength and also reinforce a proper hip hinge pattern, the foundation of a strong deadlift.
Mistake #2: Squatting your deadlift. This one's super common, especially for lifters who come from a squat-heavy background. When you set up with too much knee bend and treat the pull like a squat, your hamstrings barely get loaded. The result: you're leaving a ton of strength on the table at lockout, because the muscles that are supposed to drive the top half of the lift just aren't trained for it. RDLs fix this too, they teach you to actually hinge, not just bend.
The Pull-to-Press Imbalance Nobody Talks About
Here's a shoulder health reality check: if you're pressing more than you're pulling, your shoulders are going to pay for it eventually. This imbalance is incredibly common in training programs that prioritize bench press variations without matching them with rows and pull variations. Over time, the anterior shoulder gets overworked and overloaded while the posterior muscles that stabilize the joint get neglected.
The fix isn't complicated, it's just about balance. Tara's take is simple: make sure your pulling volume matches (or even exceeds) your pressing volume. Your shoulders will thank you, and your bench will probably get better too.
Your Core Isn't There to Crunch, It's There to Not Move
This might be the biggest mindset shift in the whole episode, and it applies to literally every lift. The core's job during heavy compound movements isn't to flex and crunch, it's to create a rigid cylinder of pressure that protects your spine and transfers force between your upper and lower body.
That means the most useful core work for lifters isn't crunches or sit-ups. It's anti-movement exercises: planks, Pallof presses, dead bugs, hollow holds, movements that train your core to resist rotation, resist extension, and stay braced under load. Once you start thinking about your core this way, everything from your squat to your deadlift to your overhead press starts to feel more connected and more powerful.
Fix the Weak Link, and the Lift Follows
The through-line of this entire episode is one of Tara's core training philosophies: accessory work isn't optional fluff, it's targeted problem-solving. Every plateau has a cause. Sometimes it's a weak muscle group, sometimes it's a movement pattern that's been compensating for too long, sometimes it's an imbalance that's slowly building toward injury.
The exercises covered in this episode, Bulgarian split squats, paused bench press, RDLs, and anti-movement core work, aren't just supplemental. They're the tools that plug the specific holes in your foundation so your main lifts can actually grow.
If you've been grinding and not progressing, this episode is worth a full listen. And if you want programming that specifically addresses your weak links with a coach in your corner, check out BroadsCOACH, Tara's coaching program through the Broads app.
What's your biggest plateau right now, squat, bench, or deadlift? And have you ever figured out the weak link that was holding you back? Drop it on Instagram and tag @broads.podcast, we want to know!
Listen to Episode 131 of Broads wherever you get your podcasts.
