ABSTRACT The traditional Newmark scheme presents deficiencies in the energy conservation and hence a numerical instability might occur when this time-stepping scheme is applied to non-linear transient problems. In order to enhance the stability properties of this implicit time integrator, a simple modification to the Newmark formulas by adding a scalar factor such that errors are compensated in the energy balance. Recently, toward an efficient temporal integrator, numerical experiments on the performance of the modified scheme is still required. In this paper, the modified Newmark scheme will be extended to dealing with highly non-linear problems such as those involved in large strain or contact/impact problems. The numerical implementation, using a finite element discretization in time and space for hyperelastic material models, verifies the performance of the scheme.