Switch your legs mid-air, every single rep.
Land soft with bent knees, don't let your front knee cave inward on the catch.
The lunge jump takes the split stance and adds flight, your quads and glutes have to produce force fast enough to leave the floor, then absorb the landing with the legs already swapped. That mid-air switch makes every rep both a jump and a catch, training power and control at once. It earns its place in conditioning circuits and athletic work where you want leg drive that transfers to sprinting and jumping.
Not if you earn them first and land well. Own regular lunges before adding flight, then land soft with a bent knee tracking over your toes. Sharp pain is a signal to regress, burning quads are just the exercise working.
Think of landing quiet. Absorb through the whole foot with knees bending immediately, sinking straight into the next lunge. If you are slapping the floor or stumbling sideways, slow the pace and shrink the jump height.
Early, while you are fresh, if you are training them for power, in short explosive sets. In circuits they work as a brutal conditioning piece, but fatigue wrecks landing quality fast, so cap the reps before form falls apart.
