Regarding lifting high numbers of reps for a given %age and sprint SE, the common point is “work capacity” (as opposed as “work power” as we sometimes find in the litterature), so yes there is a relationship.
Those charts would be useful for sprinters if their readiness to lift was permanent:
- Some day, 90% might really feel like 100% depending on the context (where we are in the training micro-cycle, what we did the same day or the previous days, etc), since weight lifting is not the #1 priority for sprinters.
- The capacity and the power of work for a given activity doesn’t coincide time-wise, so it’s probable that the day a sprinter is doing his absolute 1RM, he doesn’t have the best endurance to do, say, x reps of 75% (which should have take place some weeks before).
The 2 fastest sprinters i’ve trained have considerable difference in their work capacity on running Speed Endurance and Special Endurance workouts. Both have the same PB in weights, and they could hardly do more than 1 rep for anything above 90%. However, the one with the best work capacity on the track could do about 2 more reps for lifts at 80% or beyond.
Note that the one with the lowest work capacity have the best finish at 100m and 200m(relatively and intrinsically), hence he have a higher “work power”.
Back to the original question “is max strength important” : Sprinting is an “endurance of speed-strength” event. Strength component is there, and it include all its expressions.
Letzelter (FRG) showed that the level of max strength level has less and less important as age goes up (relationship between max strength and sprinting : 72% at primary school, 58% at secondary school, 7% at high level sprinting).
Looking at an individual progression, the progression at max strength and sprinting is parrallel up to a certain training age a qualification level.
For sure, those studies are biased by the training education and methods in place in FRG, but even using world-wide data, we find the same trend, however limitation in those studies lies in the fact that measurement of max strength is dependent on the training methodology and motivation consideration, also not everbody is doing max tests in the gym. Hence comparisons are dodgey.