Originally posted by Edgar:

well if you have the muscle to jump a certain hight you should also have the muscle to dampen that jump when landing.

One can make the argument from a game perspective that it's a bad mechanic, but this specific argument certainly doesn't follow.

Real life high jump/long jump athletes injure themselves all the time and that's jumping and landing in super safe controlled conditions not out in the wilds carry a hundred lbs of gear.