You completely miss the point. I’ve never said that weights in the 75%-85% shouldn’t be included. If you look at the setup I first posted, it includes more than 50% of reps BELOW 90%. What I’ve said is that for optimal improvement of max strength, lifts in the 85% and higher should be included. Actually, there is not a huge difference between “relying on” and 10-15% of lifts. Let me give you a sprinting analogy.
A CF follower might sprint twice per week at >90% intensity. For arguments sake, lets say he does 750m at 10m/s twice per week. So volume is either 1500m or about 150secs at >90% intensity. For argument’s sake lets say this same sprinter does 8500m of extensive tempo per week spread out over three sessions. At 7.0m/s, that’s a little over 1200seconds of extensive tempo.
The volume of the >90% work is either 15% (1500m/10000m) or about 11%, if you go by time. Either way, the volume of high intensity track work is much less than the volume of low intensity track work, but I would argue that the training, at least if the goal is to improve maximum velocity, “relies on” the high intensity sprinting, not the extensive tempo. I don’t think most sprinters would be able to improve their max velocity if all they did was run at 70%, regardless of volume, unless they were a rank beginner to sprinting. The same holds true when the goal is improving max strength. Even though there is a greater volume of lower intensity reps, the systems ulitmately relies on the high intensity reps to push the max strength envelope.
If Coan, Hatfield, whoever, excluded the lower intensity lifts, they could still improve max strength, just not as effeciently as they could with a more well rounded system. But if the EXCLUDED the >90% reps, they would not get stronger, period.