We want to look cute during our workouts, especially when our faces don’t look particularly cute as we’re straining to lift a little heavier or do a few more burpees.

With so many fitness apparel options available now, do yourself a favor: retire those ratty PE shorts that keep sliding down, and pick something that gives you the support your workout needs.

While several local activewear brands have stopped operating, Pinch Fitness by Tippi and Hannah Cusi continues to pursue their purpose and passion for an active, balanced lifestyle.

g.spot joined the most recent Pinch FitFest for an afternoon of wellness talks and fun workouts like Zumba and Inside Flow yoga. We take a look at how the sisters behind Pinch Fitness manage their business, their personal lives, and their fitness routines while still making room for rest days and cheat days.

Tippi is a wife, a mother of two young children, an OB-GYN, and a clinical professor at the Cebu Institute of Medicine. Hannah actively handles the family’s real estate business and is currently focusing on a new hotel and events space in Bohol (where Pinch FitFest may eventually be held, wink wink!). She also enjoys making kombucha and has turned it into another small business.

The girls love the community aspect the most about their work for Pinch. “We started Pinch Fitness as a fitness clothing brand, but it’s always been about the community of people who want to live a balanced life,”

A fitness lifestyle is not attainable or feasible without balance; it’s all about connecting the mind, body, and soul.

The Cusi Sisters

To split tasks for Pinch (because Cusi, or “kusi” means “pinch” in Bisaya), Hannah handles marketing and online sales platforms, while Tippi handles order preparation, customer relations, and accounting. For purchasing, it’s a collaborative effort.

In any business but particularly in a family business, the girls place importance on mutual respect and open discussions. When challenges inevitably arise, “Pause, reflect, regroup, and just get back on that horse and try again!”

To keep Pinch going while managing a busy life, exercise could easily slip out of a full calendar. But as we know, movement greatly impacts the physical and mental state. It helps to remember how beneficial exercise is to overall wellness: It gives us the strength and energy to do all of the things. The key to finding time for exercise is to make time for it in your schedule, just as you would for other appointments.

“It’s not easy at all,” says Tippi, as most people would agree. “I try my best to manage my time around the activities of my children and try to be very hands-on with them. My days consist of planning ahead, organizing, and time management. I bring them with me everywhere except when I am in the hospital. It does take a village to make sure my kids are well taken care of when I am working, and I am grateful.”

Working out is a great way to nurture relationships; Tippi frequently exercises with her husband and children to have quality time with them and instill the habit into her kids from a young age. Pinch FitFest also saw a lot of friends and families going together to have fun while burning some calories.

Of course, it’s completely fine and normal if you just can’t seem to get started on your WOD.

“If you’re experiencing an exercise slump, my philosophy towards it is don’t force it. That probably means that more than anything, you have to look inside your head. It’s normally stress-related or mental exhaustion from work. So we have to remember to honor what our mind needs too. We forget that the mind and the body are so connected and that we have to do the work to fix that connection sometimes.

“And sometimes, you’ll find that the answer is to move!” Try to exercise for five minutes and you may just want to keep going. If you still don’t feel better, it’s okay to try another day.

There’s much more that Pinch Fitness is excited to share with the community: another FitFest coming soon, and two to three collections every year with new styles of fun, functional active wear.

“We want to empower women to do better. To try harder to make fitness and health a priority not just for ourselves, but for our children and for our families. Also in obedience, because God wants us to prioritize our health— body, mind, and soul.”

Shop PinchFitness on their official website, Lazada, or Shopee.