The paper deals with an incremental method for solving the equilibrium conditions in nonlinear elasticity which was introduced by H. Beckert in 1975. Here, the alteration rate of some stress tensor is prescribed by supplementary stresses. This yields an expression for a locally defined elastic energy and the total energy can be minimized. Hence, the considered method is in the sense of minimizing movements. The authors analyze some of its properties, derive a local existence result in a simplified way, and prove the convergence of an approximation scheme.