Perfectionist Mather continues to raise the bar as she attempts to rock Glasgow crowds
LOUISE MATHER admits she’s a perfectionist, no matter what she does. And she does a lot.
Be it discussing her weightlifting personal bests, the whiplash injuries she suffers when performing to crowds of thousands with her electro rock band or filming classical musicians, conversation with the 30-year-old is far from mundane.
And, as part of Team Scotland’s assault on the Commonwealth Games, life certainly isn’t going to be dull for her this summer either.
‘I’ll have been weightlifting for almost two years by the time we finish up at the Games,’ says Mather, one of three female weightlifters to win Glasgow 2014 selection in midweek.
‘I first saw CrossFit (a strength and conditioning programme) on the internet and started doing the basic movements of squatting. I was really happy not to have to run because that’s the only way I knew how to keep fit.
‘Then I did a bit of powerlifting through a guy I met through Twitter. He taught me the basics of general strength training and I did that for about a year.
‘I went to the Olympics, taking my sister for her birthday, and we went to see what would be my category — the women’s 69kg. I got really excited, I loved it and at the end I said: “I think I should have a bash at that”.
‘I tried to teach myself how to do it, training in my basement with this old rusty bar, which I would never dream of training with now.
‘Then a friend of a friend knew my coach Ray Cavanagh, so she got me to go in to see him and he said: “Yeah, I think we’ve got something to work with here”.
‘The qualification standards for the Commonwealths came out and he thought these were possible targets for me if I trained hard. So that’s what I did.’ The results were impressive. ‘On the platform, my best snatch is 78kg and best clean and jerk is 97kg. That is 11 kilos over the qualifying standard and it actually made the next standard above, which was nice,’ says Mather with a smile.
The journey to reach this point hasn’t been completely straightforward, however. Alongside training, there are work commitments to juggle too.
‘I’m actually a freelance videographer and photographer but I’ve been lucky to have some great people to work with who are willing to shift things a bit for my training and competitions,’ she adds. ‘I have great support and my friends and family will do anything they can to help out.
‘The photography is publicity shots for classical musicians and I also cover a lot of events.
‘I came from a musical background and I’ve been in an electro rock band called Any Color Black for the last eight years. I’m the singer and I play guitar. We’ve done really well but with all the training I need to do for the Commonwealths, we’ve kind of suspended it.
‘We’re actually really good. We were offered a big gig on a boat as part of Sound to Sea (part of Glasgow 2014’s cultural programme, Festival 2014) but I had to say no because I tend to get whiplash after a performance — if you watch the videos on YouTube you’ll understand why!
‘I couldn’t go into one of the biggest weightlifting contests of my life needing a rubdown before I start.’
Surely, however, strutting her stuff in front of big crowds is perfect preparation for performing when it matters come the Commonwealth Games? Not so.
‘People say I shouldn’t be fazed by the crowd in Glasgow because I’ve played in front of 20,000 people in Germany,’ says Mather.
‘But this is really different, I’m in spandex making pain faces, so it’s really different from being caked in eyeliner with my hair over my face and running back and forward across stage.
She added: ‘We’re the geekiest band you’d ever meet. If we had some travelling to do the next day we would be in our beds early.
‘We were always like: “Yeah, let’s drink Jack Daniels” and then secretly go to bed.
‘So we always tried to portray a bit of the rock’n’roll lifestyle, and there were occasions obviously, but we were very careful about it.
‘One of the reasons I got into weightlifting is that I’m a perfectionist and it was the same with the band. If we went on stage and I knew that we hadn’t really had the right preparation I was uncomfortable and it’s the exact same on the platform.
‘I have to feel like I’ve done everything possible to give my best performance.’