The Fifth Movement, The Key to Tactical Strength

Strength training is essentially loaded movement.  A complete strength training program will include all of the basic fundamental movement patterns.  Strength and conditioning coach Dan John likes to classify the fundamental human movements into the following categories: 

1. push
2. pull
3. squat
4. hip hinge
5. fifth movement.  

The fifth movement is a bit undefined because it varies considerably.  Dan John sometimes calls the fifth movement “everything else.”  Sometimes it consists of loaded carries, or pushing a sled, maybe ab wheel roll outs.  Dan sometimes refers to it as “everything else.”  This is because there are so many different types of movements that are possible that it becomes hard to characterize.  People do OK with understanding the first four movements but there is often considerable confusion about the fifth movement.  I would like to lay out my idea of what the fifth movement consists of and why it is so important for tactical athletes. 

I initially replaced “fifth movement” with “core” but that word did not really suffice.  There was more to it than that.  When I thought carefully about what I would include as a “fifth movement” the list could simply be described as exercises that involved, “the dynamic transfer of force from upper body to lower body or vice versa, through a rigid core.”  The plank is an exercise where force is transferred from upper to lower (and vice versa), but it is static.  It fits our definition OK but not entirely.  An ab wheel rollout is a dynamic version of the plank and is a great example of a fifth movement.  Sprinting fits the definition of fifth movement OK but sprinting while pushing a prowler sled fits it even better.  Other great examples are:

Turkish Getups

Sled push

Loaded carries

Rucking

Chops

Sledge hammer work

Overhead squats

Throws

Punching a heavy bag

Paddleboarding

Windmills

There are many, many more.  Fifth movement exercises are dynamic and athletic.  As a result, they are great for building the type of strength that transfers outside of the gym to a variety of activities.  If your goal is performance outside of the gym, the fifth movement is the key.  n fact, one way to think about your strength program is that you use the first four movements to get better at fifth movement exercises.  Read that again.  It is that important (and under utilized).  In fact, most people skip the fifth movement exercises.  This is backwards.  If you are really time constrained and have to cut something out, don’t cut out the most important part!  A program of nothing but fifth movement exercises would be an effective strength and conditioning program, but the opposite is not true.  If you only do the first four, you will have a gap in your strength program and real world performance is likely to suffer.  If all you did were a variety of fifth movement exercises, you might not be quite as strong, but you would not have a large gap in your strength.  You would have good, usable strength.  Because fifth movement exercises are whole body exercises, they are really hard and make great metabolic conditioning exercises.  A typical workout might include the first four movements, followed by 5-15 minutes of fifth movement work.  If you only had 15 minutes to train, you could get an effective workout with 15 minutes of fifth movement exercises.

Based on the discussion above, I am dropping the term “fifth movement” if favor of “dynamic core force transfer.”  It is a bit long, but it gets the point across. 

In summary:

1. Fifth movement consists of dynamic core force transfer exercises.

2. The purpose of the first four movements is to make you better at dynamic core force transfer.

3. Dynamic core force transfer exercises are the most important movement if performance outside of the gym is the goal.