The stripes represent the highest rank I achieved, I was a non-commissioned officer, a Master Sergeant. The blue ones are various versions of what I wore on blue dress uniforms and normal day to day uniforms, the green ones on my Battle Dress Uniform (camoflage green), the brown on my desert Battle Dress Uniform.
Decided to have a rest day today. I have a lot of soreness in my quads, seems like maybe the lactic acid isn't draining away fast enough even though I'm stretching for about 20 mins after each gym session...didn't find time for massage yesterday but will try for today or tomorrow. One thing I learned to help loosen my traps a bit is to do shoulder rolls frequently, first going front-wards, then backwards, it does help to loosen the knots a bit. Also, there's this stuff, Bio-Freeze, you get it in roll on or a gel, you put it on sore muscles and it cools them down, bringing blood into them. That helps as well. Nothing worse than sore neck and shoulders, I think!