"substantial movement" is correct and usable in written English.
You could use it in the context of a progress report. For example, "We have seen a substantial movement towards the goals of the project."
"Even substantial movement wouldn't help them out," he said.
But then in December, American intelligence agencies detected substantial movement of stores of chemical weapons.
Despite one in three voters saying they may still change their mind, a substantial movement to Labour is highly improbable.
Now it is common to see salaries of $145,000 to $150,000, the first substantial movement we have seen in a decade".
The distributor that employs the second largest number of Unite-affiliated drivers, Wincanton, indicated last week that further substantial movement is unlikely.
President Bush, in a speech harshly critical of Fidel Castro, said today that he would not lift a trade embargo against Cuba without substantial movement toward democracy there.
There were substantial movements during the campaign.
But Beethoven also broke with tradition by placing the most substantial movements at the end of the work.
His other Mozart reconstructions included two substantial movements for clarinet and string quartet, and for clarinet, basset-horn and string trio, respectively, which Alan Hacker recorded.
With the Fed in the role of observer at this point, some market participants think that any substantial movements in the next few weeks could come in reaction to energy or stock prices.
Prokofiev's score — some 44 numbers ranging from snippets to substantial movements and running a little more than an hour in the Princeton Symphony's fine performance — juggles and reworks recurring themes devoted to individual characters or situations.
