We present a non-perturbative study of the running coupling constant in the Twisted Polyakov Loop (TPL) scheme. We investigate how the systematic and statistical errors can be controlled {\it via} a feasibility study in SU(3) pure Yang-Mills theory. We show that our method reproduces the perturbative determination of the running coupling in the UV. In addition, our numerical result agrees with the theoretical prediction of this coupling constant in the IR. We also present our preliminary results for $N_f=12$ QCD, where an IR fixed point may be present.
Comment: 8pages, Proceedings at the XXVII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 26-31 2009, Peking University, Beijing, China