The Rhythm Guitar marathon

When we thing about a complete gig and the performance requested to the rhythm guitar player it got me thinking about the physical nature of playing gypsy jazz rhythm guitar. In a usual gig we will play at least 12 tunes. Each tune is generally 32 bars long and we play the form around 8 times a tune with solos. Each bar has four beats (except for waltzes of course). If you add all that up it gives about 12,500 beats in a gig! so a rhythm guitarist is tensing and releasing his fretting fingers 12,500 times and playing around 15,000 plectrum strokes with the other hand (because there are at least a couple of upstrokes a bar). The only way to prepare for that sort of feat is to put in a lot of regular practice before the gig!