starting workout without pain?

I don't mean to glib but you know the old saying, "No pain = no gain". It's kinda unavoidable if you want to progress.

That being said, the soreness can be decreased if you take an Epsom salt bath. It's the same thing you do after a massage to decrease soreness. You can google that to find a 'recipe' that works for you.

Good luck!

Define pain.

You should not feel any sharp pain as a result of a work out. Feeling pain indicates you have damaged something such as a tendon or a ligament.

If you mean muscle soreness, that is a "necessary" aftereffect of your work out, particularly if your intent is gaining muscle mass.

If you are new to working out, you may experience this soreness for some time, it will eventually reduce as your body gets used to exercising. Additionally, you should never push yourself in a work out to the point that you are sore for several days. If that is you, in your avatar, I can say you are probably a ectomorphic build (probably, that picture is too small to judge completely). Ectomorphs have a weaker skeletal and muscular structure compared to the other body parts (ectomorphs can usually be characterized by being tall, lanky, skinny, high metabolism, or double jointed capabilities, etc), and thus also can take a longer time to heal their muscles. I have ectomorphic characteristics as well, it would sometimes take me well over 2 days to heal, particularly the chest for some odd reason.

After a good work out, you should feel SOME soreness the next day, that is an indication that you challenged your muscles enough, but remember, it shouldn't be to the point that it would be excruciatingly to poke your muscle two days later.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

You avoid soreness by doing a warm up before a work out, cool down after a workout, and stretching.

Warm ups and cool downs provide good transitions between normal and high activity levels. A warm up increases the blood flow gradually and warms the muscles so that it will contract and relax easier and increase fliexibility to help prevent injury.

A cool down, in my opinion, is by far the most important part of any exercise. There are so many reasons to do a proper cool down; lactic acid build up, sudden drops in blood pressure, and reduced flexibility-- all things that result in soreness the day after, can for the most part be avoided with a simple 10-15 cool down. -- I've been a college athlete for two years and I've ran my own lazy experiments in terms of warm ups and cool downs. Trust me, they help! I'd never be able to survive a 5 day swim meet if not for cool downs after every race and every session.

Stretching can be the end part of the cool down, and should only be done after the work out, not before unless to create movement in an injury. .

Great suggestions by the above poster. Warming up and cool downs are important and should be considered.

I realized I didn't answer the OP's question, I only explained the degree of pain he should be experiencing haha.

Gaining muscle and getting in shape are the same to a certain extent.
Eventually, you won't get sore anymore, for now be sure to give yourself time after the main set to cooldown--especially because you're just getting into the groove of exercise.

I hope the workout goes well!