I think the timing just nice happen to laps, since the aoe is pretty much instant. You can get hit by ground aoe with backflips, try crossing one of those in levi ex. I heard heard this is due to the fact that there's no third dimension calculations in FFXIV, which does make sense since it will make them really complicated.
Then again, I always tried them as my last resort since the feeling you get when it works out is really great haha