A lot of bodybuilders and a lot of weightlifters seek to enhance their physical attributes through use of the best muscle building supplements available. With that fact in mind, a lot of supplemental products have found their way onto the marketplace, and some of those are subpar. A notorious example from the early/mid 1990s was ICOPRO.

ICOPRO (or Integrated Conditioning Program), while well known to the bodybuilding community, is probably best remembered by those in the professional wrestling community. The reason for this is that Vince McMahon, the kingpin of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE) had invested heavily in the supplement. As a result, McMahon's wrestling programming heavily advertised ICOPRO for much of the early 1990s period.

Though McMahon himself is a bodybuilding aficionado, his own obsession was not a sufficient explanation for his investment. During this time, McMahon was founding his own bodybuilding organization. This was to be known as the WBF, or World Bodybuilding Federation.

The WBF was set up as a direct competitor to Joe Wieder's IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilding). Wieder held a virtual monopoly over bodybuilding (similar to the one McMahon enjoys now over professional wrestling), so the upstart organization caused many waves initially. McMahon promoted it as "bodybuilding the way it was meant to be" and felt his ICOPRO investment would benefit from its success.

The problem, however, was that McMahon's entire business empire was hit in 1991 and 1992 with a steroid scandal and federal investigation into steroid abuse. While the WWF was the primary focus for this scandal, the WBF could never avoid being tarred with the same brush. The slogan "bodybuilding the way it was meant to be" was taken as code for steroid abusing bodybuilders to join the WBF without fear of being tested.

The ICOPRO supplement could never escape the context of the scandal that its primary investor and marketer had found himself mired in. When the WBF closed operations in 1992, and Vince McMahon was indicted by the Federal Government of the United States for conspiracy to distribute steroids, his entire operation became synonymous in the media with steroids. Many assumed ICOPRO to be a steroid variant, and consequently the supplement suffered on the market.

While McMahon was cleared of all charges in 1994 and able to make his wrestling empire the most successful and dominant such empire internationally, he would never attempt to try his luck in bodybuilding again. While he did try to keep promoting ICOPRO, the product was damaged goods after the steroid scandal, and McMahon admitted defeat in this respect. ICOPRO was taken off the market in 1995.

In summary, ICOPRO was not one of the best muscle building supplements ever made. Even if it were a good one, it could never have succeeded with the quagmire of scandal and perception such as that which engulfed Vince McMahon in the early 1990s. While the market has likely seen other dodgy products, few have had as colorful a story as ICOPRO, or been as directly linked in the public eye with steroid abuse as it was.