  We briefly review how precise determinations of the strong coupling constant
and of the heavy quark masses may be obtained from heavy quarkonium. Such
determinations are competitive with heavy quark masses extraction from other
systems and give an accurate value for the strong coupling constant at a
relatively low energy scale. In particular we report about a recent
determination of $\als$ from $\Gamma(\Upsilon(1S) \to \gamma
X)/\Gamma(\Upsilon(1S) \to X)$ with CLEO data which includes color octet
contributions and avoids model dependence in the extraction. The obtained value
is $\als (M_{\Upsilon(1S)})= 0.184^{+0.015}_{-0.014}$, which corresponds to
$\als(M_Z) = 0.119^{+0.006}_{-0.005}$. Future prospects for more precise
extractions of the heavy quark masses and $\als$ are discussed.
