Whether you want to lose weight, gain stamina or improve your health, updating your cardio routine for the new year can help you meet your goals. Switching up your cardio exercises strengthens new muscle groups while keeping you from growing bored with your routine. Once you have restored interest by trying new machines and workout types, your motivation to meet your goals will soar to new heights. Here are two awesome cardio exercises to add for an all new you in 2015.

Rope Pull

Rope climbing works out all of your muscles from your fingers to your toes. Furthermore, climbing up the rope pushes your cardio system to its limits as you work your way to the ceiling. Unfortunately, if you are afraid of heights, or just don’t trust your strength to hold you at the top, you might feel tempted to skip this exercise altogether.

Thankfully, a new rope pull exercise machine makes it easy to net all of the benefits offered by this workout without putting yourself in a precarious position. The rope machine allows you to work your body while sitting, standing or lying flat on your back. You can set the resistance to mimic the strength required to lift your body weight.

Pilates

Pilates centers around using your muscle groups as resistance against each other. The result is a workout that continually challenges your body as you move through the fitness levels. Unfortunately, Pilates in its regular form will rarely drive up your heart rate enough to reach your cardio goals.

Thankfully, you can blend Pilates with cardio by either using a specially designed piece of equipment or increasing the number of poses you do each session. The machines built for upgraded Pilates moves add a bit of external resistance to the equation to drive up your heart rate into the target zone.

If your gym does not offer these machines, consider rapidly switching through the poses to reach your heart rate goals. Create a playlist of poses that you can move through during each session without breaking too far out of form for each one. For example, go from the bridge to scissors, and then to roll over and roll up. Either way, carefully watch your posture to avoid injuries caused by overextending your muscles, ligaments or joints.

Creating A New Routine

Although it seems smart to exercise every day, it is actually not such a great idea. Your muscles develop tiny tears in the tissue that need at least a day to fully heal before starting another session. As the tears heal, your muscles grow in size and strength. Taking a 24-hour break between sessions also gives your heart time to recuperate from working hard during full intensity cardio routines. Without this day of rest, you may not be able to put enough effort into the workout to gain the benefits you would otherwise. For best results, schedule just three to four workouts a week and alternate the muscle groups you focus on during each one.