I believe you mentioned Stone. Stone considers Maximal Strength to be characterized by one of the following sessions…
15-25 reps/session @95-100%
20-40 reps/session @ 90-95%
35-85 reps/session @ 75-80%
During the actual bread and butter max strength phases of his periodization plans, there is a lot (>15%) of all reps in the >85% range.
RB, your rep ranges are a little high for my taste, and the loads a little low, for what I like in a true max strength phase. I like the following sessions (talking about a pure max strength phase here without reference to competing CNS resources)…
5 x 5 @ 80% (about an 8RM load)
4 x 4 @ 85% (about a 6RM load)
3 x 3 @ 87.5-90% (about an 4-5RM load)
4 x 2 @ 90-92.5% (about a 3-4RM load)
? x 1 @ 95-100% (max)
I actually don’t believe in calculating a load, because every session in the gym is unique. I like to lift heavy with only a rep or two left in the tank whether its a hypertrophy set (6-10 reps) or a pure stength set (1-5 reps).
The boundaries are vague, but normally when I read/hear most people talking about near maximal, sub maximal etc., it seems to fall into the following broad, unofficial categories (the boundaries are fuzzy, I admit)…
<75% low load - (hypertrophy, explosive strength or strength endurance depending on rep range and tempo)
<75-85% - Sub-maximal (moderate intensity, hypertrophy and strength depending on rep range)
85-95% - Near-maximal high intensity (high intensity, strength and some hypertrophy)
>95% - Maximal (very high intensity, purely strength, little hypertrophy)