Warm up for competition

Back story: My experience with grappling competitions is that they never run on schedule and there is rarely much notice on when divisions and matches are starting. I either get called up completely cold or start warming up too early and have to wait forever. I also notice in practice that my cardio sucks during the first round of rolling and improves after, so it is obviously very important to be warmed up. That also explains why no matter how good I get my cardio for a competition, I still feel gassed immediately.

My question is how early before a competition can you do a good warm up and have it still be effective? I'm going to experiment with it, but I'm wondering if anybody else has any experience with this. I know Eddie has talked about fighters who cut a lot of weight doing an intense workout on fight day and that got me thinking about this a little bit.

If I do an intense warm up a couple of hours before my first match, will my body be ready to go or does the warm up need to be immediately prior? I will obviously still stay warm and loose, but I'm talking about an intense warm up to flush out those cardio jitters.

I'd love to get some feedback as well from some successful competitors on their warm up rituals, as well as the schedule they try to follow.

I also noticed the biggest thing for me was a lot of times I would get in my own head when I started my first tournaments. You watch guys loses via flying armbar and subbed in 10 seconds. You start to worry that its gonna be you too, etc. An explanation for a nice mental prep as well as physical prep would be awesome!

One thing that actually helped me a lot was music. In my last tournament I went in there mentally better than I had ever competed before because I simply had the jams in my head instead of myself. I only took them off to coach my team mates or get coached myself. It seemed to help me mentally focus.

The mental side is a whole separate topic that I'm working on. Right now though I'm talking purely from a physical point of view. I need to find time to experiment if nobody has any knowledge. It's probably also very personal to each athletes body too.

do yoga. I go to tournaments with my yoga mat because you kill two birds with one stone you not only warmup but you also stretch. And you don't need a lot of room. If you did yoga and hour before you start you first match your body will still feel good and ready.

I like that idea. It also solves the problem of the limited mat space provided to stretch and warmup.