Hi Eurocard,
Glad to hear your surgery went well, and it sounds like you are already having a great recovery. Congrats!
I'm somewhere between 1 1/2 and 2 yrs post-op bilateral. I'm very active riding bicycle (approx 10 hr/wk) and hiking and playing family badminton and stuff like that. I can say that ROM has been my biggest recovery challenge. Forward/backward has been easier than sideways/lateral. I do some stretching, maybe a couple times a week, but I really lack patience to work on stretching/ROM like I do cycling training.
That said, I was stretching today, and can touch hands - almost flat palm - to floor, and do a curl touching knees to forehead, among others. It comes back with time, and of course, the more you work at it, the sooner it comes back. I recall posting in the months after surgery how it's a funny way to chart recovery progress - by toenail clippings. What was a struggle the month before gets easier and easier as months go by, until at some point after many months, it becomes a mundane task again.
Before surgery, I played hockey as goaltender, ever since I was a kid. It's a position that requires fairly extreme lateral ROM, and I know I'm still a ways away from my pre-surgery state (well a few years presurgery) when it comes to lateral ROM. Like I said, I don't work stretching really hard, and I think it's fine for most any endeavor, just not goaltending. And I do notice continued improvement even after 1 1/2 yrs.
Keep up the good work. You'll be tying shoes with ever increasing ease, but it does seem to take 2-4 week intervals to notice slight improvement. They cut and traumatized a lot of muscles in there. Those muscles need to heal; they need to strengthen. I'm somewhat surprised, but happily so, to still be noticing improvements a year and 1/2 out.
I look forward to hearing about your continued good recovery.
-Dirk